


Doll-Dizzy

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Active, Addiction, Alternate Universe - 1940s, Azura and the Magic Harmonica, Crime, Discussed Rape/Noncon, Discussed Underage Prostitution, Drama, F/F, Femslash, Journalism, Lawbreaking, Learning How To Human Affection, Like these things did happen but theyre not depicted in-fic, Look the tags make it look bleak but I promise promise promise this has a happy ending, Magic still exists, My Name is Ryan and in My Spare Time I Write Novels, Other: See Story Notes, Political Conspiracies, Pregnancy, Prostitution, Recovery, Smoking, Sporadic Updates, Yknow those same-sex fanfic cliches like icarus and the sun, because thats the way i roll, its a fic with the aftereffects of sex but with no sex IN it, scarlet is both, sex as self-harm, there is no actual sex in this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2018-10-28 02:31:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10821900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: It's 1940s Hoshido and there's something rotten going on beneath the surface-- between the Shirasagi family holding the supposedly-democratic government by the balls and the secrecy surrounding the family's pharmaceutical holdings, it's hard to tell what's the truth and what isn't. Azura, Hoshido's favorite call-girl, knows a good bit more of the Shirasagi family's secrets than even they want, but she can do very little about it.Enter Scarlet Sykes, a reporter for the Chevois Sun and a member of the Chevois Independence Union. She's in Hoshido investigating the disappearance of an envoy the governor of Cheve sent to discuss alliance with Hoshido-- but the envoy hasn't been heard from in a month and Scarlet has set out to find out why. But that turns out to not be the only problem.With Azura's help, Scarlet undercovers more and more of the ugly truth, even if her life is on the line. For what else does a journalist do but seek the truth? Even as the truth itself gets uglier and uglier, and outside players and circumstances make finding the truth a danger not only to Scarlet, but to her family, and to the woman she's fallen in love with.[I don't condone the things in the tags. Additional notes inside.]





	1. The Walls Have Ears

**Author's Note:**

> Imma say up-front that the warnings are no joke-- mostly because of what azura's backstory entails. She _is_ a prostitute for a good chunk of the story and has been since age 14. Yes, it's awful. I do my best not to glamorize or belittle the awfulness of her situation but I don't shy away from it because that is a big part of her character. I do promise that the fic has a happy ending, though! it just takes awhile to show.
> 
> Reiterating that I do not condone the things described in this fic in real life-- I think they're disgusting and you need psychological help if you're "into that." This fic doesn't mention underage prostitution and dub/noncon in order for sickos to get their rocks off, for the sake of drama, or for the sake of pitying Azura. They are, in fact, shown as terrible, horrible things that nonetheless shaped Azura into who she is in this universe. If you're choosing to avoid this fic because you don't like reading about these things, I respect that and I support you in doing what's best for your health. If you've skimmed my tags and decided to tell me I'm a terrible person/spread rumors on social media that I'm a terrible person, I invite you to read the tags more thoroughly and read my notes and perhaps reconsider what you're doing with your time. If you've read what I said and want to smear my name anyway, then there's nothing I can do to stop you because I well and truly do not care to try and save a fool from their own natural folly.

In the smoky air of the jazz club, Scarlet waits.  
  
She doesn't like smoke, especially indoors. It burns in her windpipe and hides her thoughts behind a layer of haze, making it harder for her to tell what's what and who's who. It dims the colors and muffles the music that her city sings with. Perhaps that's why clubs like this are always smoky; the smoke blurs lines, makes it easier for a man to spend his savings on drinks and cards. Sunrise is a classy joint, so there's little yelling and fighting and shooting, but it does little to mask the stink of the lowlifes that gather here— they're just better dressed than the ones in Scarlet's neighborhood.  
  
It makes her lip curl, sitting here in the haze and the stench. She can hear the gambling at the tables from her place at the bar— they're betting on the cards, but Scarlet has heard the whispers of the real gambling at this place. Rumor has it that the singer, the beautiful Songstress of Suzanoh, sells a night with her to the highest bidder and takes the lucky man upstairs when the club closes. It sounds like a ploy to keep the joes in there buying drinks, but it works, so who is Scarlet to judge?  
  
Prostitution is technically illegal, but that's not why Scarlet is here. No, she's hear for the bird— the one the gamblers see as a prize, but the one that the upper echelon of Hoshido knows as a great asset.  
  
A jazz club is a busy place— through the haze, words are exchanged that could be meaningless or that could be vital. A singer has keen ears and hears it all; better, a prostitute can bring out information straight from the horse's mouth if she plays her cards right. That's just what Scarlet wants— information.  
  
She waves the bartender over. He grunts in her direction, raises an eyebrow.  
  
"I need to talk with the singer," she says.  
  
"Place your bet," the bartender replies. "Current bet is two hundred and sixty-eight greenbacks."  
  
"I don't have two hundred and sixty-eight greenbacks," Scarlet says. "Look, pal, I'm on business."  
  
"Then wait 'til hers is done," the bartender tells her. "You gonna buy anything?"  
  
Scarlet grumbles, and pulls a ten out of her wallet. "Root beer." The bartender pours her a glass and slides it to her. She catches it, then wipes the condensation off her leather glove. She pulls her gloves off and tucks them in the pocket of her coat.  
  
The song ends. The singer gestures to her band, telling them to take five. She ignores the joes that try to talk with her and sits down at the bar, holding open a hand on the counter. In half a second, the bartender slides her a glass of water. It slides right into her waiting hand.  
  
Scarlet, at the other end of the bar, can't help but watch. The singer isn't a large woman in shape or in presence, and yet she carries herself with an aloof grace that wouldn't be out of place on royalty. For her stature she seems to bend time around her, making herself somehow both everywhere and nowhere. Aside from that, she's slender and unassuming, blue hair pinned up with an army of pins except for the parts left down, framing her face. Her dress is white and cut simply, but the fabric shimmers yellow and blue in the low, smoky light of the club. She looks like a breath of fresh air amidst the haze, and Scarlet wonders how Hoshido managed to trap her here like a bird in a cage.  
  
She glances at Scarlet. Scarlet looks away, but she's still glancing out of the corner of her eye. She busies herself with the ice cubes in her root beer. It's flat and has the cloying, artificial taste of supermarket cola. She regrets not ordering water.  
  
The singer, at first, seems to ignore her. Then she gestures for Scarlet to come closer with her head, without looking. Scarlet gets up and sits down closer to the singer at the bar, one seat between them.  
  
The singer takes a long sip from her water, aware of but unbothered by the way the men in the bar are looking at her— praying that they've paid enough to be the one to have a night with her, while simultaneously confused and outraged they're not allowed to simply take what they want. They barely give Scarlet a second look. Clearly she's not the one they want.  
  
Scarlet thinks the singer was just joking and is about to move back to her seat when the singer glances her way. Her eyes are gold, seemingly holding all the light of the dim bulbs in the club, doing their best to light the place but obscured by the thick haze of smoke.  
  
She lifts an eyebrow. Her skin is a light, creamy brown. ''So what do you want?"  
  
Scarlet falters. "I'm sorry?"  
  
The singer's eyebrows flicker together in mild annoyance. "What do you _want?_ I heard you asking for me."  
  
"Oh." Scarlet feels fairly stupid. "My name is Scarlet Sykes. I'm a journalist for the _Chevois Sun._ I'm investigating Hoshido's current interest in Cheve and how that may affect Cheve's current instability."  
  
"Ah, a journalist," the singer says, the ice cubes in her glass of water clinking. "Tell me, Ms. Sykes. Why ask me? I'm just a singer." She smiles a little at that, crafty but not quite sly, and small enough that if Scarlet's senses weren't so keen, she may not have caught on. She tucks a hand under her chin, leaning towards Scarlet with a tilt to her head— Scarlet has seen women do that and knows that it means they're trying to convey that they're interested in what the other person is saying, but somehow this seems more like a show than genuine interest. Scarlet glances around, briefly, for hidden cameras.  
  
"All due respect, ma'am," Scarlet replies, voice low, "I know you're more than that. Every source I've spoken to in the city of Suzanoh tells me you know all the secrets of the upper echelon, some even that they don't know, and I don't doubt you know countless more. It's urgent that we speak privately and you tell me everything you know that has to do with the annexation of Cheve."  
  
The singer seems to understand. She scoots over to the chair next to Scarlet, knees pressed together. She reaches out and touches Scarlet's arm, then beckons her closer. She leans up, lips close to Scarlet's ear. Scarlet's face heats up.  
  
"The walls have ears," the singer whispers. "Place your bet and come upstairs."  
  
"I don't have that much money," Scarlet whispers back.  
  
"The joes don't know that," the singer replies. She pulls away, blowing a kiss on her slender fingers. She winks at the bartender subtly enough that nobody further away than Scarlet would notice. "Make it a show. Make them _think_ you've won the night."  
  
"Alright," Scarlet admits. "Thank you, miss…"  
  
"Azura," the singer purrs. "Enjoy the show, Ms. Sykes."  
  
And with that she knocks back the rest of her glass of water, and goes back up to the stage with a swing in her hips Scarlet swears wasn't there before, or maybe she just wasn't looking.  
  
The song begins and the bartender looks expectantly at Scarlet. She sends a glance back to the joes at the table, who are eyeing her with distrust and, for some, mild curiousity. She takes another tenner out of her pocket, hands it to the bartender, and nods. The bartender, content to mind his business but fully in on what's happening, tucks it under the counter with the rest of the bets and goes back to cleaning glasses.  
  
Scarlet swivels in her seat, crossing her legs at the knee and resting one elbow on the bar. She hadn't expected she'd be here so long— not that she's on any kind of deadline except one that's self-imposed. But at least it's not a bad show to be watching.  
  
One of the joes at the card table, the one in the new matching tweed suit, nods to her. She nods back. "'Oy, pal," he calls. He's young-looking but looks like he used too much grease in his hair and it seeped into his skin. "Play a hand?"  
  
Scarlet has nothing to lose. She shrugs, and straightens her leather jacket. "Deal me in," she says, moving from the bar to the chair two of the others cram into the ring around the table. "What are we betting?"  
  
"Ah, gambling's fine and all," an older man, a fat, balding one with half a lit cigar hanging from his mouth, "But this is just a hand of cards between friends." He slides her a hand and she takes it. Scarlet hasn't played Blind Manakete in years, but, well. They don't know that.  
  
"Aw, I'm touched," Scarlet grins, one corner of her mouth rising higher than the other. "No hard feelings if I win, right, fellas?"  
  
The table laughs. Scarlet laughs with them. It's subdued and although there's some humor in it, to Scarlet it feels like putting up a false sense of safety. There are about six men there with variously-colored ties hanging around their necks, and the one with the cigar seems to be the leader. Scarlet may know how to run like one of the boys, but she's not about to let her guard down.  
  
The alpha leans forward, shifting in his chair. He takes the cigar out of his mouth and taps the excess ash into the ashtray. He seems to be responsible for most of the smoke in the room. He puts down three cards— two clubs and an ace of spades. Scarlet mentally winces, but doesn't show it.  
  
"Didn't realize the canary took ladies, too," he says.  
  
Scarlet shrugs. She puts down an ace of hearts and picks up his three. "Night goes to the highest bidder. That's what I heard. I'm just playing by the rules."  
  
The eyes around the table shift to her. The young man next to her, the one in the t-shirt and suspenders, picks up her ace of hearts and puts a joker down. She hands him the three cards collected from the alpha.  
  
The alpha squints. "What's your name?"  
  
Like Hell she's giving both. "Sykes," she says instead. "Yours?"  
  
"Mori," the alpha replies. "You're not from around here, are you?"  
  
"What gave it away?" Scarlet replies. She gives him a look halfway between a grin and a smirk. A grirk? No, that doesn't work.  
  
Mori blows smoke through his nostrils. The twin men in blue and green ties and matching vests next to the one in the t-shirt glance at each others' hands and cringe. Green takes T-shirt's cards— Mori's three, Scarlet's one, and two of T-shirt's— adds a two of spades, and hands the stack to Blue. Blue makes a tutting noise with his tongue, puts a four of hearts and an ace of clubs on top, and hands it to the man sitting next to him, a young soldier in a plain brown uniform.  
  
Mori chuckles and shrugs, watching Soldier nervously put another card on top of the growing stack. It's a ten of clubs. "Just a hunch, dizzy."  
  
Scarlet would rather not be called that, but she's not bringing it up now. The soldier passes the stack to the man who called Scarlet over, the one in the tweed suit. Tweed grins at the stack, shuffles it expertly, and sets it in the middle. Everyone draws a new card from the stack, starting with Mori.  
  
"Between us friends, Sykes," Mori ventures. "What'd you bet?"  
  
"A true gambler never spills in a silent auction," Scarlet replies craftily. She has _no_ idea if anybody actually says that. She wants to curl her lip at the way they're talking about it— they're gambling on Azura like she's a fine painting to put on the wall, or an expensive set of curtains expertly-tailored that'd look just wonderful in the den. _She's a person, you sick bastards,_ she wants to yell. She won't, though— that'll blow her chance.  
  
Mori chuckles. Smoke billows from the end of his cigar like he's in competition with a chimney and it's the dead of winter. She doesn't know how Azura can manage to sing in this throat-burning haze all night.  
  
"Still," Mori admits. "I'll hazard a guess— a hundred greenbacks."  
  
Scarlet is almost sure that's a personal slight. Does he think she hasn't any more to spend? Does he assume she thinks that, because she and Azura are both women, Azura will favor her and handwave the bet? (That's kind of what happened, but there's a reason.) Or is he trying to get her to correct him?  
  
"Five hundred," she says evenly, not breaking eye contact. "I may be a dizzy, but I know how to pay for a good time."  
  
The table goes quiet. Mori's friendly smirk morphs into a scowl. He taps more ash off the end of his cigar. A full five seconds pass before he looks back up at Scarlet, daring her to correct herself.  
  
"Really?" he says. It's more of a demand.  
  
But Scarlet isn't backing down. "Of course," she says.  
  
"You're bluffing," Tweed says, eyes narrowed.

"See if I'm not," Scarlet challenges.  
  
The atmosphere of the table has turned hostile. Scarlet becomes acutely aware of the pistol in her jacket and the switchblade at her belt. She'll use them if necessary, but it doesn't seem very likely— hopefully. She'd rather leave with life and limb intact.  
  
But Azura winks at her when the song nears the end, and Mori admits defeat. Something in Scarlet's chest flutters and she tells herself it's just because anyone would get a little flushed if someone as pretty as Azura winked at them, that's just a normal human reaction.  
  
(Scarlet is a bad liar, even to herself.)  
  
She loses herself in the show. She plays four hands of absentminded cards and loses all of them because the whole time she's staring at Azura— she's a singer and not a dancer but Scarlet cannot ignore the way her hips move, the way she sways in perfect time as if music runs through her veins instead of blood; she isn't waltzing, she _is_ a waltz and she does it as if the entire room is made of music and she is merely one of the notes.  
  
_Gods._ Scarlet has it bad and she doesn't even know it.  
  
When the show is over and the band packs up, Azura strolls down the steps from the stage like she's taking a walk in the park. Not even glancing at the men in the club, she moves over to Scarlet and takes her chin in her small, slender hands. Scarlet's glad she's sitting down, because she's sure her knees would give out if she wasn't.  
  
"Seems you're the one getting lucky tonight," Azura purrs, crouching to look Scarlet in the eye. Some part of Scarlet knows that she's laying it on thick purposefully, but the rest of her is eating it up and never wants to stop. Azura is enchanting, pulling the atmosphere around herself like the world has shrunk to the size of the jazz club and she is the center— like the planets and stars themselves are leaning in closer for a better view, like gravity is centering on Azura and Azura alone, and everything else is merely along for the ride.  
  
"I knew she wasn't bluffing," Tweed whispers to Mori, but Scarlet barely hears him. Azura has drawn her into the act like a fish on a line and there's no hope of escaping now. But then again, why would she _want_ to?  
  
Azura takes her through a little door at the side of the club, across from the washrooms. There's a narrow brick stairwell crammed between the outside brick wall and the inner wall of the club, with a little wooden door at the top and a tiny window with a wilted fern on the sill. Now that they're alone and she knows Scarlet didn't bet on her for sex, Azura lets her sultry act drop and walks up the stairs, leaving Scarlet to follow, lugging her knapsack behind her. She unlocks the door with a key pulled from under the fern and gestures into the flat above with her head.  
  
Scarlet shuts the door. It's a small place Azura has to herself, with exposed brick walls and concrete support columns interrupting the space. Wires climb up the columns and crawl along the wooden rafters, leading to the switch by the door. There's one lightbulb under a metal shade that tries valiantly to light the whole space. On the back wall, there's a windowed door leading out to an iron fire escape, and long windows set high in the wall running along the length of the space. The ceiling is sloped to where it's higher at the back, though not so low Scarlet has to duck to avoid hitting her head. There's an icebox and a chest of drawers beneath a table, all matching and all quite battered, that seem to serve, collectively, as a kitchen next to a sink built out of the wall, and there's a tiny wastebin underneath the sink. A pair of dusty blue gingham curtains packing-taped to the rafters in the rear corner separates another area from the rest of the space. Along the back wall, there's an old bed frame with a mattress and a quilt, and a crate with a gooseneck lamp plugged into a series of extension cords leading along the floor and to the power outlet in the utility column. A sad-looking floral rug is flopped beside the bed as if trying to make the space feel more homey.  
  
The floorboards creak as Azura pads over to the chest of drawers under the table. She takes out a teapot, fills it with water, and places it on the hot plate on the table plugged into another series of extension cords. She glances at Scarlet, still standing in the doorway with her knapsack in her sweaty hand, and raises an eyebrow.  
  
"What'd you bring that thing up for?" she asks.  
  
"I'd rather not leave it with my motorcycle," Scarlet replies. "Where do I…"  
  
Azura gestures with her head to the table next to the coatrack. "By the table. You can put your coat on the rack. Don't touch anything else."  
  
Scarlet complies, pulling off her thick leather jacket and hanging it on one of the hooks. She keeps her boots on.  
  
Azura grabs a metal folding chair and puts it at the card table in the middle of the room— the only thing, it seems, that can serve as a living area in her apartment. She gestures for Scarlet to sit. Scarlet sits.  
  
She sits in silence as Azura goes behind the curtain. Scarlet can hear the sound of running water and rustling fabric. When she emerges, she's scrubbed the makeup off her face and changed into her nightdress— pale blue and lavender floral. She hangs the white dress she wore onstage on a peg in the wall, and pulls a worn red terry-cloth bathrobe over her shoulders. She leans against the utility column and lights a cigarette with a match.  
  
"So," she says around her cigarette. "I heard you wanted to talk to me about Cheve."  
  
Scarlet nods. "I take it you're familiar with the fact that Hoshido is trying to annex it?"  
  
"I've heard a few rumors." Azura blows smoke from her mouth and watches idly as it curls in the low light, but it's clear her attention is on Scarlet. Scarlet clears her throat.  
  
"Cheve has changed hands many times even just in my lifetime," Scarlet says. "Supposedly it was a Nohrian settlement first, but since it's so close to disputed territory and Hoshido has built several processing plants in the Chevois region, they're claiming ownership and want to pull it into Hoshido completely. In the past fifteen years alone, Cheve has been passed from one country to another like a hot potato. As you can imagine, the Chevois people are… fairly tired of this."  
  
Azura hums her acknowledgement, and the teapot whistles. Azura takes two chipped coffee mugs out of the drawer and sets a teabag in each, and pours the water over both. She sets a pair of coasters over the both of them, sets one in front of Scarlet and the other on her side of the table, and nods for Scarlet to go on.  
  
"I'm part of a movement petitioning for Cheve to become an independent country," Scarlet continues. "However, recent skirmishes in Cheve have interrupted the movement's efforts in drumming up support among citizens, so the governor sent a party to the Shirasagis last month attempting to establish a temporary annexation in order to stop the fighting with Nohr. But he hasn't heard back since, so I came to investigate and, if possible, deliver the truth back home."  
  
Azura takes a moment to take it all in. She pulls out the opposite chair and sits down. It's a lot of information Scarlet's looking for— "the truth" is a nice phrase, but it doesn't give Azura much to work with. Still, she'll try.  
  
"I'd heard a bit about Mrs. Shirasagi seeing a Chevois envoy about two weeks back," Azura admits, holding her cigarette between two of her fingers. "Though I couldn't tell you what happened to them after. They must've run into some trouble on the way back home."  
  
That's a lie and Scarlet knows it. She frowns. Maybe it's not a lie, but it's not the whole truth. Scarlet is after the truth.  
  
"That's not all there is to the story, is it?" Scarlet presses. "It's too convenient. And why wasn't there anything in the papers about the envoy? I looked."  
  
Azura shrugs. She's deliberately trying to throw the interview. "I've told you all I know, Ms. Sykes."  
  
"All due respect, ma'am," Scarlet insists. "I don't believe you."  
  
At that, Azura smiles craftily. She takes her tea and fishes the teabag from the hot water, placing it on the coaster. Her cigarette rests between two of her fingers. She takes a sip. Scarlet waits, clutching her pencil in her hand so hard her knuckles go white.  
  
"You're persistent," she purrs. "I like that in a woman."  
  
"Don't change the subject," Scarlet replies.  
  
"Who says I am?" Azura asks, arching an eyebrow.  
  
"All due _respect,"_ Scarlet repeats, less patiently, "I came here to learn the truth about the missing envoy and deliver it back home. I'm not interested in being one of a hundred johns you've rolled in the hay with."  
  
The coy smile falls from Azura's face. She narrows her eyes. "The truth, Ms. Sykes, is a lovely word, and I admire your dedication to finding it. Unfortunately, you'll have to look elsewhere from here. My hands are, unfortunately, tied."  
  
Scarlet sighs irritably, running a hand through her short hair. It's already messy enough, but it's not like messing with it more will make it worse. "A dead end," she sighs. "Damn it. I thought I had something." Scarlet rubs her temples. She takes a sip of her tea— she likes it strong. Azura's brewed peppermint. It's not very good. She drinks it anyway.  
  
Azura sets her hand over Scarlet's. Scarlet looks up. Azura says nothing, but she taps her ear, then sets a hand on the wires climbing up the utility column. What was it Azura said earlier? The walls have ears.  
  
Scarlet follows the wires with her eyes. Some go to the light switch, yes, and some feed into the light in the ceiling— but just under where one of the rafters meets the column, there's a little silver microphone.  
  
Scarlet feels sick. Every nerve in her body is screaming about how _wrong_ this feels— everyone knows about Nohr's military police keeping a very close eye on the citizens, supposedly for "protection," but at least Nohr is up-front about their surveillance. In Hoshido it seems they guard the country's secrets at the cost of innocent lives that happen to know a little more than the country wants them to, and they keep what's important to them under lock and key. After most of Scarlet's life hearing about Nohr— especially the wrongs that Nohr has done to Cheve— Hoshido looked like a sparkling paragon of fairness. It's only in her investigations that she's been able to see the rotten, seedy core stewing beneath the surface of both countries.  
  
Her lip curls in disgust just thinking about it. Why does she even bother pursuing the truth if the truth is nothing but rich folks doing nastier and nastier things to try and be better than other rich folks, not caring about the people outside their ivory towers?  
  
Azura has taken her notebook and written something in it. Scarlet pulls out of her reverie of disgust and cynicism to read it.  
  
_hsd. developing supersoldier drug. better than black king._  
_joe i slept with called it dragonvein._  
_nohr wants formula. don't know if they have it._  
_supposedly hsd. wants to manufacture it in cheve's factories. if success, could turn whole region into manufacture plants._  
_cheve gov. knows._  
_shir. family killed envoy._  
_tell no one._  
  
Scarlet can't believe what she's reading. She stares at Azura helplessly. The bags under Azura's eyes say it all.  
  
_i'm in danger?_ She writes.  
  
Azura takes the notebook again and starts writing. When she's done she returns it to Scarlet.  
  
_yes._


	2. The Great Escape

Scarlet's stomach does somersaults— she'd never thought, not in a million years, that her job would put her life in danger. Oh, she'd accepted that journalists were often hurt or killed doing their job, pursuing the truth— but it'd never felt real until now. But Azura has a plan.  
  
_stay here tonight. leave early am. destroy this notebook. forget about me. forget what i told you. anyone asks, you know nothing._  
_i'm going to start trying to seduce you. keep trying to get information. don't succeed. play the part. you're going to be won over by my feminine wiles. after that mention your tea tastes funny. pretend to pass out. after that i'll get a phone call. when its done, take your things and get out. i'll cover for you._  
  
Scarlet's head spins, but she nods. It won't be hard to play the part. Which is good, because Scarlet is a horrible liar. The air is full of smoke and that doesn't help.  
  
_thank you,_ she writes.  
  
Scarlet rips the page out of the notebook. She tears it to tiny pieces, and then washes them all down the sink. She sits back down.  
  
Azura winks. She puts out her cigarette on the back of her left hand, which is littered with cigarette burns of various ages from countless times she likely did the same thing. She stands, letting the chair screech on the floor behind her. Slowly, almost languidly, she walks around to Scarlet's side.  
  
"A shame," she remarks. "But I suppose you'd have to go home eventually."  
  
"Eventually," Scarlet admits. "Even if you can't help me, I'm— I'm sure there's _someone_ I can talk to, right? Who do you know? Who can I—"  
  
Azura presses a finger to her lips. "It's late," she purrs, leaning on Scarlet. "Aren't you eager to get the night that you paid for, Ms. Sykes?"  
  
"I-I—" Scarlet stammers. That's not an act. Azura sits herself on the table and traces Scarlet's cheek with her hand— it's the lightest of touches with her slender fingertips, down her jawbone and to her neck and collar. Her fingers fiddle with the loose tie around Scarlet's neck, sliding the knot apart. Scarlet's face is flushed to her ears.  
  
She swallows. "What I paid for was information," she says. "Who do I need to go to to get it?"  
  
"How about," Azura murmurs. "I tell you in the morning, after we're both rested. Then you can start the day off fresh."  
  
Scarlet clears her throat. "I have to admit, that doesn't sound like a bad idea," she admits. Azura takes her chin with those slender, dangerous fingers and tilts Scarlet's chin up. But their lips do not meet— no, Azura lowers her head, her breath hot over Scarlet's ear.  
  
"You're not doing that badly," she whispers.  
  
"Yeah, well," Scarlet manages, lowering her voice in reply. "You're good at what you do."  
  
Azura hums. She pulls away, their cheeks brushing, and it's enough to send a jolt down Scarlet's spine like she's some blushing virgin on her wedding night. _Get it together, Sykes,_ she tells herself. _You're twenty-eight, not fifteen._ She does not succeed in getting it together.  
  
Their lips meet. For Azura it's part of the show and Scarlet knows that but the warmth of Azura's lips, Azura's hands on her chest undoing the buttons of her shirt, feels far too real to be a charade. Scarlet lets her hands rest on Azura's waist, pulling her closer, and that's when Azura shifts off the table and sits side-saddle on Scarlet's lap. Scarlet pulls apart for air but Azura dives right back in, her lips on Scarlet's neck. Scarlet forgets what words are.  
  
Azura is nothing if not thorough when it comes to this. The second her teeth come down on Scarlet's skin Scarlet yelps— the flare of pain makes her fingers twitch and her arms, reflexively, move closer. Azura doesn't let up and she sucks, her saliva coating the junction between Scarlet's neck and shoulder. She takes a gulp of air and then goes right back in, suction on Scarlet's neck like barnacles clinging to the hull of a boat. Scarlet's hand threads itself in Azura's hair, tangling it around her fingers. It's soft and thick and there seems to be much more of it than meets the eye.  
  
The chair creaks as Azura sheds her dressing gown, leaving it in a heap on the floor. She presses her lips to Scarlet's again, more insistent, fingers starting to undo the buttons of her shirt. Scarlet makes a noise of protest into Azura's mouth. Azura pulls away and raises an eyebrow.  
  
_Wait, don't stop,_ Scarlet wants to say. Her cheeks burn. The rest of her burns and there's an insistent tugging in the base of her stomach, in synch with her heartbeat, that tells her she wants this. Except there's another part of her that's not so sure because she's never done anything like this before— and it is a bit of a contradiction. In most cases Scarlet is hot-headed, reckless, determined. One would think that a nature such as hers, Scarlet would make her way around town leaving a trail of broken hearts in her wake, burning through lovers like cheap cigarettes. And in some ways, that'd be easier— as it is, Scarlet falls in love more quickly than she can think about it, and what began as thoughtless flirting with the girl at the next table becomes far more important. She moves into courtship— flowers and gifts and talking about "us"— and for many she tries to court, it's too much, and Scarlet is left not with a trail of broken hearts, but with another name and face that will take an unfair amount of time for her to forget. As things go, Scarlet falls in love with every girl she sees, provided they won't love her back. It is a Sisyphean curse that she nonetheless must bear.  
  
Though at the moment love is the furthest thing from her mind. Something in her aches but the rest of her buzzes with helpless frustration— why is she doomed to do nothing whilst knowing exactly what's going on? What sort of useless journalist is she that she can't even give half the truth without putting lives on the line— not only hers, but those she tells?  
  
It isn't fair. Azura must sense what she's feeling, because she pulls herself away and takes Scarlet's hand.  
  
"Come to bed," she murmurs. Years in the future (but not many), she'd be telling that to Scarlet on her own, but tonight it is for the show.  
  
Scarlet swallows and nods. Azura pulls her over to the bed in the corner— it's full-sized, too wide for one person and a little bit snug for two. For Azura's purposes, it works. Azura pushes Scarlet onto the bed with the creaking of springs.  
  
"The bug can't hear as well over here," Azura whispers. " _What_ are you doing?"  
  
"I can't—" Scarlet clenches her fist. "I'm sorry. I can't do this. I can't pretend."  
  
"It's just sex," Azura hisses. "It's not even _real_ sex! We're faking it so Shirasagi agents don't think something suspicious is happening, barge in, and shoot us both! Are you not seduced?"  
  
Scarlet sighs in frustration. "Look, it's complicated," she whispers. "Maybe it's different for you, but you can't just— just _have_ _sex_ with someone. You have to _like_ them first."  
  
Azura rolls her eyes. She's about to retort with something, probably something witty yet devastating, when the clunky black phone in the makeshift kitchen rings.  
  
It rings three times, both Azura and Scarlet staring in horrified silence. Then, thinking quickly, Azura pushes off the bed and shoves Scarlet onto the floor. Her head hits it with a heavy, solid thunk. Then Azura lets out a short sigh and pads over to the phone. Scarlet lies on the floor, motionless but very much conscious, with an aching skull.  
  
"It's me, sir," Azura says shortly into the phone. "Yes, someone's over. I just took care of them. They're out cold. I'll send them out in the…"  
  
"I have it under control. This is what I _do_ , remember?"  
  
"You don't need to— no, I insist."  
  
"Sir, I've hosted most members of your staff and know most Hoshidan national secrets. Are you _sure_ you want to play that card?"  
  
"I could tell you about— ah, good choice."  
  
"… Nobody. Some journalist from Cheve chasing after the truth, like all the rest of them."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"She doesn't know anything. Check the recording if you don't believe me."  
  
"I know, sir."  
  
"I know, sir."  
  
"Yes, sir. Goodnight."  
  
Azura hangs the reciever on the bed with a heavy, plasticy clunk. She pads back over to Scarlet. Scarlet narrows her eyes, but she hasn't moved since Azura dumped her onto the floor.  
  
"Don't move," Azura whispers. "I'll get you a pillow. Try to get some sleep. You're lucky Mr. Shirasagi believed me when I said I didn't tell you anything, else we'd both be dead before I hung up the phone. Blink once for yes, twice for no."  
  
Scarlet believes it. She blinks once.  
  
Azura seems satisfied. She takes one of the pillows off the bed and puts it beneath Scarlet's head. It's a throw pillow in a tacky cover that looks like Azura had bought it at the flea market for a penny, but it's better than the floor. Despite the excitement and feeling like she'll never be able to sleep soundly again in her life, Scarlet eventually drifts into restless slumber.  


* * *

  
  
Azura shakes her awake early the next morning, before sunrise. There's a thick woolen blanket that smells like mothballs over her that shifts when she sits up, blinking the sleep from her eyes. The water is running. The lights are off.  
  
"Get up," Azura whispers. "The bug can't hear over the water. Get your things."  
  
Scarlet gets up. She sets the blanket on the bed, and squints in the darkness for her bag. Azura's moved it by the back door, the iron one leading out to the fire escape. She helps Scarlet into her jacket and zips it up. The streetlights outside are orange and they wash all the color from Azura's face and hair, but her golden eyes light up so vibrantly Scarlet wants to stare at them and never look away. Azura shakes her out of her reverie and Scarlet blinks. The spell is broken.  
  
She pats at her harness for her sidearm and finds it isn't there. Then Azura presses the pistol into her hand.  
  
"I reloaded it," she whispers. "And I tucked some extra rounds into your jacket. Front left pocket. You may need them."  
  
"Thanks," Scarlet whispers back. She zips up her jacket and pulls her goggles down from her forehead, covering her eyes. Her helmet is still with her bike. "Azura—"  
  
Azura stares, eyes hard as steel. "We can't waste any time," she says.  
  
"You could come with me," Scarlet suggests. "What kind of life is this, huh? Selling your nights to the highest bidder, and sleeping with men that'll be dead if the bug hears them spill their secrets? There's no freedom in this."  
  
"You're an idiot," Azura tells her. "Worry about yourself."  
  
"I'm a journalist, but I'm also part of the Chevois Independence Union," Scarlet says. "I believe in freedom, and _this_ — this isn't it."  
  
Azura stares at her. Scarlet isn't cowed, and stares right back. She's not much taller than Azura— maybe half a head— but it's enough that Scarlet has to look down to look Azura in the eye.  
  
Azura breaks her gaze first. "Fine, then," she says. "So go find that freedom for yourself."  
  
"If I find it, I'm coming right back here and bringing some to you," Scarlet promises, taking Azura's hand in her own and clasping it tightly. "That's a promise."  
  
Azura rolls her eyes, but she smiles, just a little, and that was Scarlet's goal. She's about to open up the door and finally say goodbye when tires screech in the alley behind the jazz club. Scarlet grits her teeth. Of _course_ they have company now.  
  
A motorcycle revs out back, then comes to a stop. Up the stairs come two Hoshidans— older people, both perhaps in their mid to late forties, though Scarlet recognizes neither of them. The woman wears a wicked grin that sends a shiver up Scarlet's spine, and although the man, unlike his companion, doesn't seem to relish the thought of replacing Scarlet's brains with buckshot one bullet at a time, he's glaring coldly and that's far from comforting. Scarlet puts her hands up. Azura, pressed against the utility column, does the same.  
  
Azura grimaces. "Didn't realize the Shirasagis would send investigators this early," she mumbles.  
  
"You _knew_ about this?" Scarlet hisses.  
  
"I thought you'd have time to escape before they got here," Azura hisses back. "They won't shoot me, I'm too valuable to the country's efforts. If you were long gone, there'd be nothing they could do."  
  
"Ah, there's our Azura," the woman says proudly when she and her partner enter the apartment, though she's still grinning at Scarlet with what can only be described as bloodlust. "No wonder my dear Mikoto took such a shine to you. You both have such _funny_ little ideas."  
  
Azura says nothing.  
  
Her partner speaks up. "We're not here to kill anybody," he promises, adjusting his wire-rim glasses by the bridge. "Ms. Sykes is a guest in this country. Killing her now would show poor hospitality."  
  
Scarlet swallows. "What do you want with me? I didn't do anything!"  
  
"Come, now," the man says. "It isn't what you did, it's what you know— what Azura told you."  
  
Scarlet's blood turns to ice, but Azura stays cool under the pressure. She scoffs. "I haven't told her anything," she insists. "Ryoma said he believed me! Or did he send in the big guns because he's too _cowardly_ to disappoint dear old mom?"  
  
"Look, I don't know what you want," Scarlet ventures. Her hands shake. "I'm just a journalist."  
  
"Journalists are very dangerous people, Ms. Sykes," the man says.  
  
His companion growls. "This is getting us nowhere," she says. "Yukimura—"  
  
"Mrs. Shirasagi said no killing," the man— Yukimura— says sharply. "I know how you relish it, Ikeda, but this is neither the time nor the place."  
  
Ikeda scowls. She's close enough that Scarlet can see the x-shaped scar marring her features, twisting one corner of her lip into a permanent sneer. She stares Azura down, seeming to silently question Azura's decision. Azura, who must be made of _solid steel,_ shows no fear.  
  
Scarlet's mind runs at a mile a minute. Acting on instinct, she grabs Azura and puts her between herself and the other two, taking out her sidearm and pointing it at Azura's head.  
  
"Here's what's going to happen," Scarlet announces to Yukimura and Ikeda, praying her hands aren't shaking as badly as they want to. "I'm going to get my knapsack. The both of us are going to leave, and you're going to go back to Mrs. Shirasagi and tell her I'm as good as dead. Either of you move to attack, I shoot. I don't like killing, but I'll do it. I swear, I'll do it."  
  
"Then I suppose I'll just have to kill you both," Ikeda says. She puts a hand on her shotgun, but Yukimura grabs her elbow.  
  
He grimaces. "She's right," he murmurs. "Azura is too valuable to lose."  
  
Ikeda glares. She yanks her arm away. "Then _you're_ the one to tell Mikoto," she replies. Yukimura winces— he clearly doesn't want to be the one to do it, but Ikeda has a point.  
  
Scarlet can't believe that worked. But she picks up her knapsack and puts it over her shoulder. Azura, playing her part wonderfully for the fact that Scarlet is pulling this plan out of thin air, doesn't move. Yukimura and Ikeda can do nothing but watch as the two of them escape down the fire escape and on Scarlet's motorcycle.  
  
"I hate this job," Yukimura sighs. "At least at my old gig, I could've gotten tenure."  
  
"You've grown soft," Ikeda says, with a note of amusement. She snorts. "Who'd have thought?"  
  
"We don't _all_ relish the idea of killing kids, you know," Yukimura replies. "Let's go. Time to tell our benevolent boss that her golden child has been kidnapped by a rogue reporter."  


* * *

  
  
At least for now, there's nobody pursuing. Still, Scarlet only stops her bike hours after they've left Suzanoh, stopping at a little motel and truck stop on the highway. She parks her bike outside the motel and lets herself breathe, finally.  
  
"I can't believe that worked," she breathes. Azura gets off the bike and stares at Scarlet with silent fury burning behind her eyes. She yanks Scarlet's helmet off her head and shoves it into Scarlet's chest.  
  
"I can't believe _you,"_ she seethes. "That was the most _moronic_ — most _idiotic_ thing I've ever witnessed! Do you _realize_ what this means?"  
  
"It means we both got out of that alive and un-abducted?" Scarlet guesses.  
  
"News flash, asshole!" Azura shouts, poking Scarlet in the chest for emphasis. "You just abducted _me!_ You _know_ the only reason the hostage situation worked was because Hoshido values me too much to let me die! Do you really think the Shirasagis are just going to let me go? They'll be hounding us until _you're_ dead on the ground and _I'm_ back in the birdcage!"  
  
"Look, give me a break," Scarlet protests. "I've never done— _this_ — before! This whole 'my life is in danger so I have to use a gun and lie to people's faces' thing? This is new! I'm a _journalist_ , not a gangster! I thought on my feet and it worked and we're both alive. Need I remind you that it's _my_ life on the line?"  
  
Azura glares. "I _would've_ had a plan," she says. "I'll have you know."  
  
"Yeah, and by the time that happened, they would've filled me with buckshot," Scarlet replies. She folds her arms. "So, there's that."  
  
"You are the most _infuriating_ person I've ever slept with," Azura decides. "And I didn't even sleep with you because you had to bring _feelings_ into the mix, or whatever. You really _are_ too soft for this."  
  
"You say that like it's a bad thing," Scarlet says. She looks around, and breathes. "Hey, do you want anything from the truck stop? I need to fill up the bike anyway."  
  
Azura narrows her eyes. She pulls Scarlet's leather jacket closer around her shoulders. Azura is the embodiment of fury in a blue floral nightgown. "No, thank you," she says. "You've done _quite_ enough for me."  
  
Scarlet rolls her eyes. She gets back on her bike and pushes it over to the truck stop, leaving Azura outside the motel.  
  
"You've done _quite_ enough for me," she mimics under her breath, leaving her bike to go pay for a tank of gas. "A 'thank you' would've sufficed…"  
  
The truck stop is dingy and empty except for the line cook and a few other patrons scattered around the bar. Scarlet picks up a newspaper and a can of Coke and goes to pay for them at the bar. The kitchen itself is inactive, though there's the strong smell of coffee and cheap whiskey. She pays with a dollar bill and gets a nickel in return. She drops it in the tip jar.  
  
Scarlet sits at the bar, away from the others in the truck stop. There's tinny jazz playing from a radio. She opens up her Coke can with its characteristic fizzing, waits for it to calm down, and takes a drink while she flips her paper to the first page. It's _Suzanoh Daily,_ and the top story is something about the Shirasagis' new supposed 'miracle drug'— this one is a diet pill— breaking sales records in the pharmaceutical world. She skims the top stories looking for anything to do with Cheve and finds nothing. She supposes that news of Azura's abduction won't have hit the presses yet— the Shirasagis may even be keeping it a secret for the time being. It wouldn't reflect well on the Shirasagi family if the people knew one of their top assets was a prostitute— and that they'd let that prostitute get kidnapped by a nobody from Cheve. She sighs, and flips over to the comics.  
  
"Chester is my favorite," someone says, sliding onto the seat next to her. Scarlet looks up, raising an eyebrow. It's a shapeshifter, it seems— a man with fox ears and a moth-eaten blue scarf around his neck. He grins, his pointy canines sharp but the grin itself friendly. One of his ears is tucked under a cap. There's a hole in the other that looks suspiciously like a bullet wound.  
  
"Good on you, pal," Scarlet replies, taking another sip from her Coke. She returns to reading.  
  
"It's just so true to life, you know?" the fox continues. "I mean, I didn't realize it'd be so entertaining reading about real life, but some of the stuff in that comic really speaks to me on a personal level."  
  
Scarlet didn't ask. "Neat," she says.  
  
"Oh, where are my manners?" he chuckles at himself, making fun of his own absent-mindedness. "Name's Akeda— my friends call me Kaden."  
  
"Sykes," Scarlet replies. "Was there something you wanted?"  
  
Akeda shrugs. "We all want lots of things, I'd say. As for me— got any spare change? I'm a few greenbacks short for bus fare, and I've got to get home by tomorrow to see my grandma. I swear, I'll make it worth your while. Want a watch?" He pushes up his sleeve and shows off six watches of various brands. All of them are stopped, and two of the faces are broken.  
  
The bell over the door jingles when Azura walks in. She strides in like she owns the place, and affectionately cuffs Akeda about the head like they're old friends.  
  
"Still hawking your defunct goods for spare change, Kaden?" she asks, voice teasing.  
  
Akeda's face bursts into a grin. "Why, if it isn't Azura," he says. "Well, beat me daddy eight to the bar! I haven't seen you in _years!_ How've you been?"  
  
Azura smiles, though whether there's genuine delight in it is up for debate. "As good as anyone can be, working for Hoshido's glitterati," she says. "Say, Kaden, could you do me one and buy me a pack? You know the kind I like."  
  
Kaden tips his cap. "For you, anything," he says eagerly. He bounds off to do her bidding, and Azura steals his seat.  
  
Scarlet stares in awe. "You _knew_ that fella?" she says in disbelief. "How did you get him to buzz off like that, anyway?"  
  
Azura chuckles. "Akeda's a sweetheart, but he's a little gullible," she admits. "I gave him the best damned blowjob he's ever had three years ago, and now he does whatever I say whenever he's in town. It's a first for me to go to him, but I haven't left Suzanoh in years, so."  
  
She steals Scarlet's Coke and takes a swig. Scarlet does nothing. She frowns, trying to figure out what to say.  
  
Azura takes the pack of cigarettes from Akeda with a friendly smile. Akeda, sensing that they're having a conversation, tips his cap to Scarlet and takes his leave. Azura opens up the pack and lights one up. Given the quality of the air in the jazz club, Scarlet's not all that surprised she smokes.  
  
Azura leans in a little closer. "I poked around in the motel," she murmurs. "So far the news channel hasn't said anything about my being kidnapped— or about a rogue Chevois, either. My best guess is the Shirasagis are hushing it up so they can deal with it quietly."  
  
A horrible thought occurs to Scarlet. "You didn't tell them that you told me about… the _thing_ , right?" she asks. "I mean— you wouldn't do that, right?" Perhaps subconsciously, Scarlet puts a hand over her notebook. It's still in there, and it's a relief to know even if Scarlet has already checked. Even if they destroyed the evidence that Azura told her, if the Shirasagis knew _anyway_ …  
  
Azura stares hard at the counter. She takes a drag from her cigarette, then blows the smoke out of her mouth. "I've lied a lot in my life," she admits. "But I _didn't_ tell the Shirasagis that you know."  
  
Scarlet breathes. "I believe you," she says. "Just… _shit."_ She takes a deep swig from her Coke. "What do we do now?"  
  
To that, Azura shrugs. "I suppose the first thing we can do is get you back to Cheve," she says. "You can disappear back into obscurity. It'll be a tentative peace, but it'll be better than nothing. I'll go back to being Suzanoh's favorite callgirl. Most likely, it'll work until Shirasagi operatives track you down and put a bullet in your brain."  
  
That doesn't sound like a great existence. Scarlet suddenly doesn't want the rest of her Coke.  
  
Azura stands again. "We ought to lay low for the rest of the day," she decides. "Maybe leave again once it's nighttime. I'll get us a room at the motel."  
  
"How?" Scarlet asks. "You don't have any money."  
  
Azura just puts her cigarette out on the back of her hand, and winks. She tosses her cigarette in the wastebasket and saunters out the door. Scarlet watches her go, and all she can do is wonder. She forgot her cigarettes.


	3. Down to the River

The six-lane highway is bleached pale gray in the chilly autumn sun and although Scarlet has heard the Suzanoh area is nice this time of year, it's not like she'll get the opportunity to see the sights. They're hours away from the city of Suzanoh now, on the highway leading straight into the heart of Nohr, though they're still a long way away from Cheve. Two full days of driving, at least, and that's if she speeds. Endless rice fields stare from both sides, peppered with chunks of orchards and farms, and occasionally punctuated with roadside rest stops. Every now and again, cars and trucks zip by at sixty miles an hour, bound for wherever they're meant to be.  
  
Were it up to Scarlet, she'd hop on her bike and go home— back to her family's house in Cheve, with its ivy-covered walls and chipped bricks and wrought-iron fence, the cars too tightly parked to be safe in the driveway and the chalk drawings on the sidewalk that get replaced every time rain washes them away and the toys and bicycles scattered around the front yard because nobody's bothered to put them away if they're going to be played with again tomorrow; her aunts gossipping in the conservatory and her uncles swapping war stories on the back porch, her little cousins and nieces and nephews playing games on the third floor and in the yard and wherever they need to be, her grandmother in her rocker with her knitting and a toothless smile on her old wrinkly face, her brothers either fighting or gambling or both but they still love each other even if they never show it and her sister watching over it all with benevolence and keeping the family pictures clean and in the right places like they ought to be. She'd ride right up that crowded driveway and not even bother locking her bike, jump up the stairs two at a time and run in through the door to the smell of baking bread and sounds of chatter and laughter and sewing machines and the radio crackling, and everyone would look up and grin with smiles that matched hers and she'd say—  
  
 _I'm home,_ she thinks. For a second it feels like she could do it, get on her bike and go home to the house she grew up in, filled with family that moved in to take care of Gram in her old age but never left (but it's alright because the house really was too big for just Gram and Scarlet and her parents), but then the smell of stale coffee and gasoline and Azura's cigarettes hits her and she realizes _oh_ — she's not in Cheve anymore, she's a thousand miles away in a truck stop in Hoshido on the run from the authorities and she has never felt so homesick before.  
  
Liquid drips onto the back of her hand. Scarlet hadn't realized she's crying.  
  
She mutters a curse under her breath and yanks a wrinkly handkerchief out of the pocket of her jacket. She wipes her tears away roughly, blinking them back and forcing herself to breathe. She squints at her reflection in the window, praying her face doesn't look too puffy. She can't tell, so she hopes it doesn't.   
  
She finishes her coke, tucks the newspaper inside her jacket in case Azura wants a look at it, and pays for her gas. Before she can go out to fill up her bike, Akeda puts a hand on her arm.  
  
"What do you want?" she says hoarsely. She clears her throat.  
  
Akeda puts his hands up. He grins benignly. "Just some parting words," he says. "Best be careful if you're traveling with the Canary of Suzanoh. She'll get you into trouble, she will— oh, but it'll be the _grandest_ kind of trouble, you won't even realize."  
  
Scarlet lets out an irritated sigh. "Anything else you wanna tell me, creep?" she demands. "We're _not_ friends. Don't act like we are just because Azura sucked your—" she cuts herself off. Adult or no, she can't say that word in polite company, even if the truck stop hardly counts as such. "Anyway."  
  
"Cool down, dizzy, no need to bust my chops," Akeda chuckles. Then he gives Scarlet a look far too crafty for her to be anything but on high alert. "Just watch your back, yeah? You're bumming around with one dangerous dish, and I hate to see folks going belly-up just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person."  
  
"Newsflash, fat-head, I've been in the wrong place at the wrong time since last night," Scarlet snorts.  
  
"Ohh, yeah, I _heard_ there was some trouble at the Sunrise last night," Akeda recalls, scratching his scruffy (yet also impeccably groomed) chin. Scarlet's blood runs cold and it must show in her face, because he grins and taps one of his pointed ears. "Kitsune, remember? Word travels quick when you can hear a fly buzzing from across the room— plus, I heard it buzzing on the radio. Pretty scary stuff you hear sometimes."  
  
"What did you hear?" Scarlet says tightly.  
  
Akeda doesn't tell her. He puts a finger to his lips instead. "Best not talk about it here," he says. "The walls have ears."  
  
Almost frantically, Scarlet scans the area for bugs. She sees none, but by the time she looks back to Akeda, he's gone. Thoroughly rattled, Scarlet dashes out of the truck stop and to the motel.  
  
Akeda watches her leave the truck stop, and tucks a hand into the pocket of his jacket. The other adjusts the popped collar of his shirt, undoing the top button. He shrugs, then goes back to his own business. He can't say he didn't warn her.  
  
Azura's outside again. She's sitting on the curb, lacing up a pair of white orthropedic trainers she must've stolen from someone in the motel so she wouldn't have to get back on that motorcycle while barefoot. Scarlet wastes no time hauling her up from the curb, glancing behind her as if she's worried she's being followed.  
  
Azura frowns. She's used to being pushed around, but she hadn't picked Scarlet out as the type. "What's gotten into you?"  
  
"Akeda," Scarlet whispers. "In the truck stop, he told me— told me he heard about what happened. Last night. On the radio. Said the walls have ears."  
  
Azura frowns. "You don't think he—"  
  
"I think we need to get _out_ of here, _right now,"_ Scarlet agrees. "I think he either called the Hoshidan police or he called the Shirasagis, or knows someone that did, and either way isn't good."  
  
Azura frowns. "And I'd just gotten us a nice room," she frowns. "I suppose I'll have to give that joe his money back. At least fill up the bike first."  
  
Scarlet breathes. She doesn't hear any sirens, for now. She runs a hand through her hair, which has only gotten more frazzled with the events of the past day. "Yeah. Fill up the bike. I can do that." She can do that— assuming her hands stop shaking.  
  
When the tank is nearly full and Azura is waiting by the bike, buckling Scarlet's helmet onto her head and adjusting the weight of the knapsack on her back, Scarlet hears sirens. She tenses the second the flow of gas cuts off beneath the nozzle, and sets it back onto the pump. Gasoline sloshes in the cylinders as excess drips back in. With shaking hands, Scarlet puts the nozzle back onto the rest.  
  
"They're close," Azura says, settling herself on the back of the bike behind Scarlet. "We should go now. Maybe get off the highway. It'd make us harder to follow."  
  
Scarlet nods. She pulls her goggles over her eyes and starts her engine. It roars to life and then cools to the comforting purr Scarlet has loved since she first got the bike. Scarlet shoves off and gets going down the highway, but the sirens approach, still.  
  
She can hear Azura curse even over the roar of her engine and the wind of the highway. Azura grips Scarlet's waist tighter, crouching as if that'll help the bike go faster— it won't.  
  
 _"THIS IS THE HOSHIDAN NATIONAL POLICE,"_ someone on a bullhorn shouts from the lead car. From the brief glance back Scarlet allows herself, there are three. _"PULL OVER. REPEAT, PULL OVER. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. FAIL TO PULL OVER AND WE WILL START SHOOTING, REPEAT, WE WILL START SHOOTING."_  
  
"I _hate_ when this happens," Scarlet groans. "Azura, what—"  
  
"Get off the highway," Azura shouts. She reaches into Scarlet's jacket and pulls out her pistol. "I'll handle them."  
  
"You're going to _shoot_ at _police?"_ Scarlet shouts back. "Are you nuts?"  
  
"Probably," Azura replies. "Just go!"  
  
Scarlet curses and kicks her bike into a higher gear. The engine roars, and she swerves down the nearest exit quickly enough to leave skidmarks on the road.  
  
She hears two shots and the screeching of tires, and a loud, metal-warping _CRASH_.   
  
_"YOU WERE WARNED,"_ the bullhorn shouts. _"COMMENCING FIRE. PULL OVER FOR IMMEDIATE ARREST ON CHARGES OF KIDNAPPING AND EVADING THE LAW."_  
  
"Fuckin' Hells!" Scarlet swears. "Azura, hang on!"  
  
Azura shoots another two times. One bullet hits the bullhorn with the screeching and crunching that happens when you shoot electronics, and the other smashes through the car's windshield. The car swerves, but doesn't fall off the road. And then the police start firing back— three shots glance off the metal of the bike. One zips past Scarlet's ear. One tears through the arm of Scarlet's jacket and narrowly misses grazing Azura's arm. Scarlet swerves the bike down the streets of a small city, weaving through traffic and revving her engine in advance so people can get out of the way.  
  
But they leave Main Street behind quickly and dive back into the heavily-forested countryside of southeastern Hoshido. Down the roads they plummet, riding over fallen branches and pine needles. Scarlet swerves around oncoming traffic more times than is legal. Azura succeeds in shooting the pistol out of the shotgun officer's hand and he shouts, but someone in the backseat pulls out more heat— Scarlet swerves as best as she can and Azura shouts a curse as another bullet narrowly misses. She uses up the last bullet on the front tire but misses, and reloads with one of the rounds in Scarlet's jacket. Three more go into trying to pierce the police car's tires, and while one lodges, it doesn't hit in the right way to pop the tires. The fourth succeeds in popping it but it only slows them down.  
  
"There should be a river around here somewhere," Azura shouts. "Get us near there. I have a plan."  
  
"Is your plan getting rid of all those bullets, because that's what it's doing," Scarlet shouts back.  
  
"Just do it," Azura presses. Two more shots into the windshield. She reloads again. Two bounce off the hood of the car and one lodges in the grill. She has three shots left and she has a very small target.  
  
Scarlet curses. She swerves the bike around a turn so fast her cheek damn near skids on the road, and the police car behind them screeches along the barrier but damn it if that's stopping it. Azura aims and fires— a miss, into the woods behind her. She fires again— a miss, into the windshield.  
  
Last bullet. Scarlet steers the bike down the street of some rich neighborhood and towards the waterfront, praying Azura's plan is something good.  
  
"Go right towards it," Azura shouts. She fires the last bullet and hits the other policeman right in the hand— he shrieks in pain. A perfect shot, but now she's out of bullets. She shoves the gun back in Scarlet's jacket and pulls something out from under her nightgown— a harmonica?  
  
"Are you crazy?" Scarlet demands. "We'll _die!"_  
  
"Just trust me, and follow my lead!" Azura shouts. Scarlet shakes her head— what choice does she have? She revs her engine— full speed ahead for the river.  
  
Azura stares the driver of the car in the eyes. When she can see her reflection in the cracked windshield and Scarlet's front tire is inches from the edge of the road, time seems to slow.  
  
She puts the harmonica to her lips, breathes, and plays a refrain— bitter, tasting in her mouth like rain in the desert with the tang of blood in her mouth. The bike plunges into the murky river water, taking Azura and Scarlet with it.  
  
Under the water, Azura opens her eyes. Scarlet flails, trying to get to the surface, but Azura takes her arm and Scarlet calms. Above the water, the police car stops. The driver gets out and scowls at the water, then gets back into the car and drives away.  
  
Azura's home has always been in the water. She wills the current to take them downstream, and downstream it takes them. She pulls Scarlet out when the river's taken them to the edge of town, coughing for breath and soaked to the bone. Scarlet sucks in a huge breath, sputtering and shaking the water out of her hair.  
  
For a minute that's all they do— sitting on the bank, squeezing water out of shirts and hair, catching breath lost during the chase. Scarlet dumps the newspaper and her notebook, both ruined from the "swim," and inspects the rest of what she has in her pockets. A lighter, now useless. Her wallet, with its contents damp around the edges but not ruined. Her keys, which are fine. A switchblade, which is fine. Azura's cigarettes, which aren't.  
  
"Gods," Scarlet coughs. "When you said 'go for the river,' I was fully expecting both of us to drown."  
  
"I like to think water and I get on better than that," Azura replies. She peels Scarlet's leather jacket and her red bathrobe from her shoulders, and dumps the water from her stolen shoes. Scarlet's gun probably isn't useless if it's watertight, but she's out of bullets so she can't try.  
  
"Yeah, I ought to ask," Scarlet adds, peeling off her button-down and her t-shirt and leaving them on the rocks to dry in the sunshine, next to her waterlogged boots and soggy socks. "About that. And the harmonica—"  
  
Azura curls her hand around the harmonica, on a little chain around her neck. "Family relic," she says, clearly evading the question.  
  
Scarlet isn't fooled. "Family relics are crap you leave on your shelves and dust but never use them," she says. "Not— _magical harmonicas_ that you play in the midst of a police chase. That thing must be special."  
  
"Well, it's both," Azura admits. "It's… complicated."  
  
Scarlet sighs. "Somehow I think that with you, everything is."  
  
And Azura lets herself laugh, just a little, because she's right.   
  


* * *

  
  
The clothes and the things in Scarlet's knapsack dry quickly in the afternoon warmth and, blessedly, nobody interrupts them. As strangely nice as it is sitting on a rock in her underwear, Scarlet is glad to be dressed again. Azura sends her out to buy them some food and when Scarlet gets back, Azura's packed everything into the knapsack and borrowed some of Scarlet's clothing. Scarlet returns with jerky, soup, beans, a can opener, a few apples, a hard loaf of bread, and a glass bottle of water.  
  
"I tried to buy you some cigarettes," Scarlet admits. "But I'm not a Hoshidan citizen, so they wouldn't let me."  
  
"I'll get some later," Azura shrugs, biting into one of the apples with a crunch. "Did anyone look at you with suspicion?"  
  
Scarlet thinks back. "Not that I saw."  
  
Azura nods. "Good. We should catch the train to Izumo from here. They're neutral territory and the Shirasagis have no power there, so it's unlikely any of the Shirasagis' goons will try and start something. From there we can catch a ferry to Dia, and I think if we stick to the coast in Nestra and avoid going into the country proper we should be alright until you get to Cheve."  
  
Scarlet nods. She stirs the beans in the can with her spoon. "What happens to you?" she ventures.  
  
Azura pauses. And she pauses for a long time— long enough Scarlet has almost forgotten she asked.   
  
"I'll go back to Suzanoh," she guesses. "You can live the rest of your days as nobody. I'll go back to the Sunrise and make money off secrets and sex. You can forget you ever met me, and live the normal life you had before I told you what you didn't need to know."  
  
Scarlet watches trash in the river float by. She looks at Azura, staring at the water. She's still in Scarlet's jacket, and the sleeves cover her hands just a little bit. Scarlet's belt is on the first hole— has to, to hold her jeans up, and the legs are rolled up at the ankle. She's borrowed a pair of Scarlet's thick socks to wear with her now moss-stained trainers. Scarlet's pink overshirt is too big for her, but she's tucked it in and it's not a bad look for her. Scarlet's helmet is on her lap. She's braided her hair, just to keep it out of the way.  
  
Scarlet shakes her head. "After today," she says, "I could never forget you, Azura. Not for as long as I live."  
  
Azura goes quiet.   
  
"I know you didn't need to tell me the truth about… about dragonvein," Scarlet murmurs. Azura starts putting the can opener and the uneaten food in the bag. "You could've made up some lie and saved your own skin, and I wouldn't have been the wiser. But you decided I needed to know the truth. And even if it kills me, I'm glad that I know it— but why? You knew it'd put me in danger."  
  
Azura breathes, quite deeply. She closes her eyes for a little bit longer than a standard blink. "I suppose," she admits. "I was tired of it being a secret. At first I was going to tell you because I thought they'd just shoot you, but—" she hesitates. "Then I saw how committed you were to your craft. To the truth. And I decided that if anyone could get the truth about what Hoshido is planning to do with dragonvein out, it'd be you. That's why I told you. That's why I'm helping you now."  
  
It's a lot to take in. Scarlet leans back on her arms, spitting the apple seeds in her mouth onto the ground. "But what am I supposed to do with the truth about dragonvein? Who am I supposed to take it to? I don't even know anything about it."  
  
Azura purses her lips. "That's the thing," she admits. "Neither do I. Information on dragonvein is on a need-to-know basis, in that it was only a fluke that I even learned its name. All I know is that it's far more potent than black king, and it could tip the favor of the growing Hoshido-Nohr tension decidedly in Nohr's favor."  
  
Scarlet frowns. Black king is dangerous enough— Cheve was a Nohrian territory first, and it's the soldiers trained with black king— Nohr's Kingsmen— that keep the people of Cheve down. They're all brutes— big and bald and humorless, acting only on orders from their superiors and held on a tight leash made of the drug. But although they can't act without orders, they can punch down buildings singlehandedly and bite through concrete like it's butter. Scarlet has never had to fight one, but she's also never lived in a world where they're not stationed like sentinels at every major intersection, waiting for orders. If black king is what controls the Kingsmen and dragonvein is stronger than that, that doesn't bode well.  
  
"If Hoshido managed to put dragonvein into effect," Scarlet ventures. "It'd have a better chance against the Kingsmen. And the Kingsmen have been the main threat to Cheve's freedom since Cheve was a territory— it takes three Hoshido soldiers to match up to one of them. Somehow Cheve is still the metaphorical hot potato, but if Hoshido's soldiers used dragonvein and Cheve allied itself with Hoshido…"  
  
"You're missing the point," Azura retorts. "Hoshido doesn't _care_ about Cheve, Sykes. The Shirasagis don't give a damn about helping _anyone_ aside from themselves. When dragonvein gets past its experimental stage, they're going to forcibly take Cheve back from the Nohrians and turn it all into manufacturing plants, all so it can keep its soldiers in shape. I don't know what it'll do after that, but whatever it is, it doesn't bode well."  
  
Scarlet feels ill. Somehow she knows what Azura is saying is true, but that doesn't make her feel any better. It's strangely ironic— she's a journalist, sworn to seek the truth no matter how dangerous it may be, and yet faced with it, all she wants to do is go home and bury her head in the sand. The truth is ugly and dangerous and what's on the line is not only her career but her life, probably her family's lives, and possibly Azura's life.   
  
"I can't just sit on the truth," Scarlet decides. "I already know it. My life is already in danger. I have to do my job as a journalist and bring the truth to the people."  
  
Azura stares at her, hard. "You know what that'll mean."  
  
"So they kill me," Scarlet forces her tone to sound light. "So what? If I can get to some neutral publication source and put the secret out into the world, then they won't be able to kill everyone who knows because there are just so many who know, so many telling other people, then they won't be able to do anything."  
  
"They may still kill you, even if this works," Azura says.  
  
"I'm prepared to take that chance," Scarlet replies, and she surprises herself with how serious she sounds— and is.  
  
Azura scowls. She's never met someone quite so stubborn— then again, it surprises her how few people she's actually met. She has plenty of acquaintances like Kaden Akeda, and she's come into contact with more people than she can count through her job. But actually _knowing_ someone, talking with them for longer than it'd take to make a pass— not to mention burning rubber out of Suzanoh and getting into a shootout chase with the Hoshidan authorities, and jumping into a river to cover their tracks. Azura can't say that, in her nine years of living in Suzanoh, she's _ever_ done that.  
  
So she breathes. "Alright," she says. "Let's start with the train to Izumo, then. If there's anyone making a neutral publication, they're based there."


	4. Cadeuceus

The train whistle blows. On the platform, Azura clings to Scarlet's arm like they're a couple taking a train to Izumo for their honeymoon. Azura looks down the tracks, shading her eyes with her hand. She can see the train approaching— billowing huge plumes of thick smoke, the locomotive itself all iron painted white and brown, the national colors of Hoshido. Scarlet's not a fan of train travel, but since her bike is at the bottom of the river, it's either this or hitchhike. And since Azura's not wearing a skirt, there's no guarantee she can get them a ride— ah, well.  
  
But Scarlet knows how people act on trains. Even with stolen tickets, and even with the fact that Scarlet is a bad liar, she's ridden trains before. She rode a train to get to Suzanoh, and she was going to ride one to get back, but that didn't happen.  
  
Azura stole them first-class tickets, so Scarlet stretches out on the bench in the compartment when they board. Oh, yeah, she could get used to this.  
  
Azura eyes the other passengers with suspicion. Scarlet draws the compartment door shut just so she won't freak anybody out.  
  
"I don't like this," Azura decides. "Couldn't we have hopped a freight train? I can do that."  
  
"Freight trains don't have free dinner with a ticket," Scarlet replies, holding up their tickets— and the free dinner circle is, in fact, marked. "I don't know about you, but I think getting legitimate tickets is much easier than trying to ride illegally, price be damned."  
  
Azura frowns, tugging Scarlet's jacket further over her slender shoulders. "Still," she mumbles. "If you'd packed a skirt, I could've borrowed it and gotten us a ride. Or three."  
  
Scarlet shrugs. "If it bothers you that much, we can pick you up some things when we get to Izumo," she offers. "In the meantime, just enjoy the ride. We threw the cops off our trail with that last stunt you pulled, so unless the wires are already buzzing down south, we have some time to breathe, don't we?"  
  
"Breathing is only good if you're certain there will be air," Azura says wryly, a Hoshidan proverb that Scarlet doesn't get but that means something like _don't get too comfortable if you don't know what's coming._ Azura doesn't understand most Hoshidan proverbs— they all seem to be common sense. _Food for thought requires a mind with teeth. If the ground shakes, shake with it. Never give a Kinshi food if you haven't tasted some yourself._ Things like that. They make some sense literally, but finding out the figurative meaning requires a frustrating knowledge of Hoshidan cultural values that even Azura, despite living in Hoshido for ten years, can never truly understand.  
  
When the train gets underway, Scarlet takes a Time magazine from the cart Azura buys a pack of cigarettes. She lights one as she watches the scenery zip by outside the window. Forests turn to fields and hills and then back again, and all the while mountains loom in the distance. She blows smoke from her mouth and the crossbreeze through the slightly-opened train window snatches it and pulls it out.  
  
Scarlet's looking at the burns on the back of her hand. She never lets the scars really fade; she only has so much hand, and it's habit that she puts her cigarettes out there. There are burns on top of scars— yesterday's blistered but she drained it and washed all the fluid away so now it's just a sad purple scab. There's several years' worth of cigarette burns there. She no longer has sensation on the back of that hand.  
  
One night a man kissed her on that hand and she winced in pain, because his lips were greasy and felt like salt on the open wounds. If he noticed he didn't say; he said she was too beautiful for her pretty mouth to be ruined by smoking. Then he took her chin in his hand and kissed her on the same mouth that's kissed many, many other men just like him. She forgot his words the morning after and in a week they fished his body out of a canal because he told her a secret that Hoshido didn't want him to say. She doesn't remember this man's name, though she purred it in his ear when he said _say my name,_ and she made him think he drew it from her lips when she took him to her bed. She remembers very few of the names attached to the bodies she took upstairs.  
  
Azura just raises an eyebrow. "Take a picture, it'll last longer," she says.  
  
Scarlet looks away. "Sorry," she says. "I just— looks like it hurts."  
  
Azura shrugs. "Not anymore."  
  
"Stupid question," Scarlet admits. "How long have you smoked?"  
  
Azura shrugs. "About five years now," she says.  
  
"Was five years ago when the club opened?" Scarlet asks.  
  
To that, Azura shakes her head. "The club was open long before I got there. I came to Hoshido when I was about fourteen, and about that time, the old singer retired, so I auditioned, took over the job, and moved myself in. Somehow or other Mrs. Shirasagi heard about… what I was doing… so she let me get on with it if I let them bug the place."  
  
Scarlet doesn't like the sound of that. "So you still… back then? And people went along with it?"  
  
Azura takes a drag from her cigarette and blows the smoke out the window. "Yeah."  
  
Disgust curls in the pit of Scarlet's stomach. She wants to say something about how _wrong_ that is, how _revolting_ , how absolutely _horrifying_ — but from the look on her face, Azura already knows.  
  
Scarlet doesn't say anything for a long time.  
  
"I'm sorry," she finally says. "You didn't deserve that."  
  
Azura hadn't expected that, but the surprise only shows on her face for an instant. She blows more smoke out the window. "Yeah, well," she shrugs. "Nothing we can do about it now."  
  
The conductor comes by and punches their tickets. Azura coughs the ash from her lungs. There's five years' worth of ashes in there— five years of ashes in her ashtray at home, five years of cigarette burns on her hand, five years of coughing up a storm when the temperature drops. She doesn't smoke a pack a day like some idiots out there, but even just a little bit a day that it takes her to feel the burning in her throat and lungs, feel alive— it adds up. It'll probably kill her one day. She's accepted this.  
  
Scenery rolls by. Scarlet dozes. Azura knocks the ashes from her cigarette into the ashtray built into the door, and puts out the rest of it on the back of her hand. That's a habit, too— makes her feel real, like the material world affects her. She pokes at the blister that forms and it pulses in protest. The burns stopped hurting a long time ago.  
  
She leaves her cigarette in the ashtray and takes the magazine. She's never been one to read magazines— she doubts that _Lifetime_ 's target audience is politically-employed whores— and _Better Homes and Gardens_ proves no different. She sets it aside in mild disgust. Out of morbid curiousity she starts flipping through the _Sears_ catalogue that came with the magazine, and sees nothing interesting.  
  
Tree branches whack against the side of the train and Scarlet jolts back to alertness. She blinks, still fuzzy from her half-sleep, and focuses on Azura. She grins goofily.  
  
"Anyone ever tell you you're a lovely sight to wake up to?" she says.  
  
Azura is unamused. "Quite a few times, yes."  
  
Scarlet cracks her neck. "I suppose it's too much to hope that we're in Izumo," she says, glancing out the window. They've left the mountains and forests behind and they're now rolling past endless fields. It's late afternoon and the sun has turned the sky gold.  
  
Scarlet stands, squinting through the window. "I think I can see the ocean off in the distance," she says. "We're closer than we were, though, that's for sure."  
  
Azura hums. She stares with disinterest at the models in the _Sears_ catalogue. Her blue floral nightgown is in fashion this winter— who knew.  
  
"Ever been to the ocean, Azura?" Scarlet asks. It's a question born of curiousity, not judgemental or prying.  
  
Azura shakes her head. Then she guesses that may not be enough information, so she continues. "I've never had the time or money for a seaside retreat, and I work six days a week anyway." She barely had enough to buy herself _food_ , since all she made as a prostitute went towards the club. She was just lucky the Shirasagis covered the costs of her apartment above Sunrise. Her low wages were probably a way to keep her under control— she could scrape together the pennies left over, but it'd never be enough to buy her way out of the business, never enough to pull herself out from under the Shirasagis' collective thumb.  
  
Scarlet nods. "I've only been once," she says. "And I imagine Izumo isn't quite the same as the coast of Cheve. It was pretty neat, though. So much water, all in one place. Makes you feel real small."  
  
"I can imagine," Azura says. Scarlet chuckles, leaning her chin on her hand as she watches Hoshido zip by.  
  
"I was about nine when we went," Scarlet says. "My dad told me nobody's ever crossed the Southern Ocean. I told him I'd learn to fly a plane and I would— 'course, I was too young and too short back then. But I did learn— went to flight school for college, got my wings… then the Nohrian government started making noises about expanding the Kingsmen Draft to include women in military programs, so I became a journalist instead. They can't pump you full of drugs if you're just some paper-pusher with a typewriter."  
  
She shakes her head, and chuckles. "Childhood dreams," she mumbles. "They don't let the Kingsmen fly, anyway. Did you have any of those dreams, Azura?"  
  
"I wanted to be a mermaid," Azura replies. It's true— until she was around ten, she was wholly convinced mermaids were real and she could become one if she wished. "I don't put too much stock in silly childhood dreams."  
  
Scarlet shrugs. "That's fair," she admits.  
  
Azura watches the scenery go by. She snorts halfheartedly. "Little me would be so upset," she says. "Finding out that she's destined for a future of one strange man after another, dancing and singing for their consumption and taking the richest idiot to bed, and then seeing them dead within the week. Nobody dreams of being a whore."  
  
She's correct about that. Scarlet chuckles a little, but goes back to staring out the window. Azura can tell her thoughts run away from her because her smile drops.  
  
"You must miss them," Azura ventures. "Your family."  
  
Scarlet looks up. She nods, and sighs.  
  
"I keep thinking they're so close," she murmurs. "Back at the truck stop, I kept thinking— if I just got on my bike and rode for a couple days, I could make it home. I could go home, bury my head in the sand, and get on living the way I was before I found out about these damned _secrets_ , before I became a journalist. I could be a pilot again, and fly across that ocean like I told my dad I would."  
  
Suddenly she looks much older. "But that's just a dream, now," she sighs. "Now I'm here, chasing the truth, with my friend the callgirl and a knapsack full of soup cans."  
  
Azura flips a page in the _Sears_ catalogue. "Sorry to disappoint."  
  
Scarlet blinks. "No, no, it's not _your_ fault," she says. "I just… miss my folks, you know?"  
  
"I don't," Azura says. "But if it's any consolation, you'll be able to see them fairly soon, if we can hitch a ride west on Circuit 24. A few days, if all goes smoothly and we aren't shot the minute we utter a word to some sympathetic, unafilliated party."  
  
"You don't miss your family?" Scarlet questions.  
  
"I don't have one," Azura replies. She puts the Sears catalogue down and pulls open the door to the compartment. She tucks her cigarettes in the pocket of Scarlet's leather jacket, still wrapped in it like it's a blanket despite it being too big. "I'm going to the washroom."  
  
Scarlet must've touched a nerve. She nods, and Azura shuts the door behind her.  
  
Once Azura goes, Scarlet paws through her bag for something to do— anything. But all her reading material got ruined in the river, so that's no good. She flips through the dinner menu idly, then sighs. She never was very good at doing nothing.  
  
She leaves the compartment, looking for the dining car. Surely they've started serving by now. Maybe she could get a second plate delivered to the compartment if Azura didn't want to eat in the dining car…  
  
They're not serving dinner yet, but upon asking, Scarlet is assured they're bringing it out soon. So Scarlet sits down at the bar and peruses their soda list. She orders a lemonade. Surely they can't mess up lemonade.  
  
Someone taps her on the shoulder. She turns. It's a young, dark-haired man in a gray pinstriped suit that looks expensive but it's slightly faded and frayed at the edges. He grins, supposedly friendly-like, but his canines look too pointed to be anything but dangerous. There's a glint of something in his bright red eyes— not malice, exactly. Scarlet can't quite place what it is.  
  
"You Nohrian?" he asks.  
  
"Chevois," Scarlet replies. "Who's asking?"  
  
The young man leans on the bar with his elbow. "You can call me Sil," he says. "Not often you see a Nohrian in Hoshido."  
  
" _Chevois_ , and I'm on holiday," Scarlet lies. "The missus heard Izumo was nice this time of year, so here I am."  
  
Sil nods in understanding. "I see, I see," he says. "A dame's dame, huh? No shame in gettin' hitched early, that's what I say. My sister, now…" He chuckles.

"Wouldn't it be boring if we were all the same," Scarlet says. She takes a sip of her lemonade, winces, and steals six tiny paper packets of sugar from the nearest condiment station. She rips them open three at a time and pours all of them into her lemonade, then stirs with her straw.  
  
Sil has hopped up on the bar stool next to Scarlet. "Ah, true," he says. "So what do you do, huh? Let me guess… professional penguin-wrangling."  
  
Scarlet snorts. "Not quite, pal," she says. "I'm a journalist."  
  
Sil takes this into account. "Ah, you're part of the press, huh? Any publication I'd know? I'm actually part of the game myself, see, so I'd know more than you think."  
  
"Nah, it's just a local rag," Scarlet shrugs. "You wouldn't know it unless you're in Tilmere."  
  
"Tilmere, huh?" Sil seems to take that into account. "Interesting. Nice place, Tilmere."  
  
"You've been?" Scarlet raises an eyebrow.  
  
"Nope," Sil replies cheerfully. "So, Sykes— can I call you Sykes?" Scarlet doesn't remember telling him her name, which is extremely off-putting for a second before she remembers she can't freak out and shoot him here without causing a major hullabaloo.  
  
"Uh," Scarlet manages.  
  
"Great, so, Sykes," Sil barrels on like an express train. Then he drops his voice, motioning for Scarlet to come closer. Against her better judgement, she does.  
  
"I got the scoop on your, ah, sitchy-ation," Sil whispers. He _really_ _does_ pronounce it like that. "Saw you getting on the train. Bad news, getting involved in the Shirasagis' business. I should know— I'm one of 'em."  
  
The color drains from Scarlet's face. She backs away. Sil grabs her arm and leans closer, again.  
  
"I'm not, y'know, _with_ them, though," Sil replies. "My sister and I are, ah… an independent party."  
  
"Great, moderates," Scarlet mumbles.  
  
"We know about the drugs," Sil whispers, his voice barely loud enough for Scarlet to hear over the train and the din of the dining car. "Dragonvein. Ash and I have a, uh… intimate knowledge, y'might say, of how it works and why Nohr wants it."  
  
"This is the _sketchiest_ thing I've ever done in my _life_ ," Scarlet whispers back. "You _do_ realize I have no reason to trust you, right?"  
  
"Of course," Sil admits. "But you're interested. We can't tell you the details here, though. We're compartment 25-C. Bring Azura if you want to know the whole story."  
  
Scarlet's blood runs cold. "You know Azura?" she says. "Gods, did she give _you_ a blowjob, too?"  
  
Sil snorts, covering his mouth with his hand like that's the funniest thing he's heard in years. "Not quite," he manages, when he recovers. "We're old friends."  
  
"Uh-huh," Scarlet says, furrowing her brows. "Alright."  
  
Sil leans back and pats her shoulder. Scarlet stiffens. "But, you'll consider it?" he repeats.  
  
Scarlet frowns. "You couldn't have worded this in a way that's less… extremely creepy?"  
  
Sil tucks his hands in the pockets of his blazer. "'Fraid not," he says. "Comes with the territory, dizzy. Just, ah… think about what I said. 25-C."  
  
"Yeah," Scarlet nods. "Yeah, I'll think about it."  
  
Sil nods. Then he shoves open the door to the next car and vanishes from sight. They've started bringing out dinner, but Scarlet has never felt less hungry in her life-- though that doesn't last very long.  
  
She takes a plate to Azura anyway. Azura has come back to the compartment and opened her pack of cigarettes again. She's not-quite-glaring at the wall, and she hasn't lit her next cigarette.  
  
Scarlet hands her a plate. It's smoked fish and rice— supposedly a Hoshidan dish, made for a palette not used to Hoshidan food. Scarlet would eat anything at this point, because lunch by the river feels like ages ago and it wasn't a very filling lunch anyway. Azura takes the plate but doesn't look at it. Feeling somewhat awkward, Scarlet sits down and starts shoveling rice into her mouth with the fork they provided— possibly taking pity on her due to her obviously-not-Hoshidan looks.  
  
Azura sighs heavily and snaps the cheap chopsticks in two. "Sorry for storming out," she says. "When you asked about… my family."  
  
"Mrf," Scarlet says. She swallows her food. "Sorry. No, it's my fault. Not everyone wants to talk about their families, you know?"  
  
Azura nods.  
  
"So, I get it," Scarlet shrugs. "You don't have to tell me."  
  
Azura narrows her eyes. "That's it?"  
  
Scarlet nods. "Yeah," she says. "You don't wanna talk about it, then don't talk about it."  
  
This seems to actively perplex Azura— she frowns, staring at Scarlet as she vacuums up her rice. Scarlet looks up, her cheeks full of rice, fork in her mouth.  
  
"Wuf fumfin?" she asks, spraying rice onto the ground.  
  
Azura shakes her head. "It's nothing," she says. She starts cutting apart her fish. Scarlet shrugs and continues eating.  
  
When she's through, Scarlet sets the plates aside and clears her throat. "So, before dinner, while you were in the washroom," she brings up. "I headed down to the dining car for a drink, and some joe started talking to me. Said he saw us getting on the train. Said he knew you."  
  
"I know lots of joes," Azura replies. "Did he want his money back? I don't do refunds."  
  
"Y'know, I asked if you blew him, too," Scarlet says. "He laughed."  
  
Azura raises an eyebrow. "So some joe claims he knows me, but he wasn't one of my customers?"  
  
Scarlet shrugs. "That's what he said."  
  
Azura thinks. She lights her cigarette, takes a drag, then it hits her so hard she chokes on her smoke. She hacks up half a lung for a minute before wiping her eyes and punching the seat. "Gods— _Sil_."  
  
"Yeah, that was his name!" Scarlet remembers. "He said he and his sisters knew about— the _thing_."  
  
Azura groans. "Gods, them _again?_ I can't have one _fucking_ year without the _Wyrmsbanes_ poking their collective draconic noses into _my_ business?"  
  
Scarlet senses a story there. "Uh—"  
  
"You'd think helping them _once_ would be enough," Azura grumbles around her cigarette. "Where are they? I need a word with them."  
  
"He said 25-C," Scarlet says. "Azura—"  
  
"Gods," she grumbles. "Come on, Sykes. I may need you to keep me from slaughtering them."  
  
"I have some concerns," Scarlet calls, following Azura out of the compartment and down the narrow hallway. But Azura doesn't listen, storming down the car.  
  
She slides open the door to 25-C without knocking. Scarlet recognizes Sil, and someone who looks exactly identical to Sil, in an identical pinstriped suit, except the doppelganger's hair is much longer and pinned at the nape of their neck. This must be the sister Sil talked about. Azura glares like she's staring down a punk that stole her purse.  
  
"You two," she says.  
  
"Us two," the twins agree, grinning cheekily.  
  
Azura lets herself in and sits down on the bench opposite the twins. She glares. Somewhat awkwardly, Scarlet sits next to Azura and slides the compartment door shut.  
  
Azura glares. "So what do you want?" she asks the twins. "You couldn't come up to me personally?"  
  
"Aw, you had that scary look in your eye, right, Ash?" Sil says.  
  
"You know how you get," his twin, Ash, adds.  
  
"Terrifying," they chorous.  
  
Azura rolls her eyes. "Antagonizing Scarlet, though? _Really_ , Silver?"  
  
Sil shrugs. "She was there."  
  
Azura's icy glare is more of a glower at this point. "And what are the two of you even doing here? What happened to your investment opportunities?"  
  
Sil chuckles. "Well, the radio thing fell flat—"  
  
"And we recruited a few more folks—"  
  
"And we may or may not be permanently banned from most of the south of Hoshido, see—"  
  
"So we're rerouting."  
  
"We've got a house!"  
  
"It's really Mozu's house—"  
  
"She's just letting us use it as a base—"  
  
"Because we pay rent."  
  
"And we were in Suzanoh, y'see—"  
  
"Around the same time as Skyes here—"  
  
"And we heard—"  
  
"From Kaze—"  
  
"About some big to-do with the Shirasagis at your club, Azura!"  
  
"So we were concerned—"  
  
"And we poked around a bit—"  
  
"And it turns out—"  
  
They grin identical grins that, while neither good nor evil, contain a great amount of chaotic energy. "Our interests align with yours, for the time being," they say in unison.  
  
Scarlet feels extremely afraid. She fidgets with the untucked end of her overshirt. "Azura…"  
  
"I don't like this, either," Azura mutters grimly. She sucks in more poison from her cigarette and blows it out the slightly-opened window. "Gods. How do the two of you _always_ manage to ruin my day? And here I thought I'd have a year where you _didn't_ bother me somehow."  
  
"Oh, don't be like that, 'Zura," the twins say, in unison, because that seems to be their Thing. They exchange glances, and then grin, showing identical sets of sharp teeth, like hyenas ready to pounce.  
  
Ash sets a hand on the wall. It glows blue for a second, and then fades.  
  
"So, now that we've sealed off sound," Silver says, steepling his fingers, "I think we'd best tell you what we know about dragonvein."


	5. For the Lost

It sends a shiver up Scarlet's spine when he mentions it. All she knows about this drug is that it's bad news and Nohr wants it. She's not sure she wants to know more, but…  
  
Ash's crimson eyes glimmer. "The short of it," she says. "Is that we're a big part of the development process. But this is not time for short— you need the whole story."  
  
"Perhaps this is hard to believe, but Ash and I are shapeshifters," Silver continues. "We're direct descendents of the last Astral Dragon— mom just couldn't resist the allure of getting in on some draconic hanky-panky, and because of that, she got us."  
  
"I'm older," Ash adds.  
  
"It doesn't matter—" Silver attempts. He glares at his twin, then breathes. "Anyway. We have the powers of the Astral Dragons, which comes with heightened strength, stamina, senses… anything you'd need for a super-soldier."  
  
"Pretty nifty, huh?" Ash grins. "Every damn government around thinks so, too."  
  
"Hoshido already knew about us," Silver says. "Mom told our stepdad when she married him, so _naturally_ the entire upper echelon of the Shirasagi's family business knows. Ever wonder why she's still around as the head after he died? That's why."

"Well, and they like her," Ash admits. "A while back, word got out to Nohr that the Hoshidans had a couple of dragon kids on their hands—"  
  
"—So old man Garon decided he just had to grab a hunk of it," Silver finishes. "And boy, did he— snatched us _right_ up the second mom looked away—"  
  
Ash interrupts. "Not that he could figure anything out before we got out. In general, Nohrians are tough, but their science is pretty far behind Hoshido—"  
  
"And what Hoshido's doing with dragonvein in the Wall is harnessing our transformation power and applying those buffs to someone _without_ dragon blood. Garon knows that the drug is something within reach, but he doesn't know how to get it—"  
  
"—And we've been evading his slimy grasp ever since." Ash shrugs, like it's not a big deal. Scarlet thinks they must have some sort of supermagic in order to be able to do that.  
  
"That's kind of where Cheve comes in," Silver continues. "Word got out about Hoshido's progress with dragonvein, somehow. In a billion years, I couldn't tell you how. Somehow the governor got it in his head he could blackmail Hoshido into cooperation, sent his envoy, and underestimated the Shirasagis."

"Hoshido's a superpower," Ash shrugs. "Even without dragonvein, they could get a handle on Chevois authority and crush it from the inside out."  
  
For once, the twins look deadly serious. Azura frowns, unsettled. "What happens if Hoshido or Nohr implements dragonvein and gives it to the soldiers?"  
  
Silver winces. "Nothing good," he says. "We _have_ these buffs, we have the transformation powers— but we were _meant_ to carry it. We're _built_ with dragon power in mind."  
  
"Say _you_ try it," Ash proposes, nodding to Scarlet. "You've got some meat on your bones. You used to be a pilot, right?"  
  
"How'd you—" Scarlet begins. That's a useless question. She nods instead.  
  
"Right, so you're pretty strong," Silver continues. "That's helpful. Imagine all that strength your muscles have, tense all the time— tugging constantly, wanting to be _bigger_ , _stronger_ than it is. All this strength pulling so much it breaks your bones, then tears itself right off the bones themselves."  
  
Scarlet winces. Ash picks up where her twin left off. "Your blood boils, hotter than anything you can imagine," she says. "There's all this _pain_ , but you don't know where it's coming from. Your body wants to reshape itself— cracking your bones, snapping your tendons, regrowing muscles— but there's no information that tells it what to grow. So your body just—"  
  
Silver crushes an empty soda can like paper between his hands. Scarlet feels sick. She gets the point.  
  
Azura puts a hand over her mouth. "Then… they've _tried_ it?" she asks, horror evident in her voice.  
  
Silver nods gravely. "Still are. The formula works, but the human body can't take it. I'd figure they're working on adding new information, adapting what's there to adjust itself to human capabilities."  
  
"They're _killing_ people for _science!"_ Scarlet shouts, lip curling in disgust, standing up from her seat. The train rocks, and she falls back down. She regrets eating that fish and rice so quickly. "Not even for science! For— for—"  
  
Her throat closes up. She buries her face in one of her hands, thumb and finger pressing her temples. It's all she can do not to jump out of the train and charge straight to the head honcho of the project and throttle them.  
  
"They're killing people," Scarlet croaks. "They're _killing people_ , and they're going to level Cheve in order to kill more. And for what? 'Just in case' Nohr attacks?"  
  
"I had no idea this was the scope of the project," Azura murmurs. "I thought…"  
  
Blood rushes in Scarlet's head. Azura and the twins are still talking, but Scarlet just stares at her shaking hands, trying not to let the mixture of rage and disgust bubble out of her. The unfairness of it all still stings. She grew up on her grandfather's stories of living in Hoshido— the military small but proud, proud of the country they stood for. His old medals, his old brown cap still sit in the house. And she grew up on stories of Nohr's kingsmen, the corporate reign of Krakener Arms a heavy threat hanging over the heads of her fellow Chevois. She noticed Kingsmen on the corners just in case on her way to school, saw Nohrian officials in big black cars driving through the streets while she played hopscotch, listened to Nohrian military news on the radio while she did her homework. Even as young as grade school, Scarlet understood that issues were rarely as simple as they seemed, but in comparison to Nohr with its military and its soldiers and its trucks full of firepower en route to Windmire, Hoshido seemed so noble. Suddenly the days Scarlet spent daydreaming about being _a hero for Hoshido, just like grandpa,_ felt tainted and left a bitter, metallic taste in her mouth.  
  
Turns out Hoshido is, in a different way, just as bad as Nohr. The revelation hurts even more the second time around.  
  
"What about Cheve?" Azura asks, getting back on a more immediate topic.  
  
"Dust in the wind," the twins say in unison.  
  
"If the Shirasagis figure out how to make dragonvein work—" Ash begins—  
  
"And they decide they need Cheve's land to build manufacturing plants—" Silver continues—  
  
"It's likely they'll just level the place—"  
  
"—Because the countryside's in use growing food and other things they need—"  
  
"—And nobody wants to try and build plants up on the mountains in the north—"  
  
"—It's either that or conquer Nohr—"  
  
"—And it seems most likely they're not going to do that."  
  
They finish in unison, and whereas before they felt like avatars of chaos and discord, here they're vital allies with extremely valuable information.  
  
Scarlet clenches her fists. "Then we have to stop them!" she decides. "I can't just— just _sit by_ and _hide_ while the Shirasagis bulldoze my home!"  
  
"How in the nine Hells are you going to manage that?" Ash says skeptically.  
  
At that, Scarlet falters. Azura nods, holding her cigarette between her fingers. She's gone through half of this one, burning through it faster than she usually does. There'll barely be a butt when she's done.  
  
"Whose side are _you_ on, anyway?" Scarlet demands, instead of answering.  
  
"The side where you don't end up getting killed," Azura retorts. "Look, Sykes, I'm all for telling the truth and all— that's why we're going to Izumo, isn't it?"  
  
"This isn't just _about_ the truth!" Scarlet protests. "Even if we _do_ somehow get the truth out about dragonvein and about the drug race, there's no guarantee that'll stop Hoshido from turning my home into Smokestack Wasteland, and there's _definitely_ no guarantee Nohr won't just level the place!"  
  
She forces herself to breathe. She looks pleadingly at Azura. "I won't blame you if you go back to Suzanoh once we get word out," she says. "But I _have_ to do this. I have to at least _try_ and save Cheve. If I do nothing, and I have to watch my home destroyed, my family displaced or-or-or _worse_ while knowing I could've done something, _anything_ — I don't think I could live with myself."  
  
Azura says nothing. She sticks her cigarette in her mouth and holds it between her lips, golden eyes flitting as she watches the telephone poles alongside the train tracks. Scarlet's hands tremble, fists clenched so hard her nails are digging C-shaped dents into her palms.  
  
The twins exchange looks.  
  
"Hey, now," Silver ventures. "Let's take this one step at a time, eh? You're looking for someone unafilliated, that'll publish your story? I may know a few fellas."  
  
Scarlet and Azura leave the compartment with a list of daily rags that may run their story— all Scarlet has to do is write it. But she can do that, and that's what she does back in her seat with a pencil and another little notebook— generous gifts from Lillith Wyrmsbane. Azura's cigarette is nearly burnt-out, but she hasn't finished it. She just stares out the window at the darkening sky, watching the lights of various towns pass in the distance.  
  
She sketches out the outline of her story, and jots down the facts— this will be an article of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and gods help her if she breaks that creed. This is bigger than Tilmere, bigger than all of Cheve— the secret of dragonvein concerns the whole continent, and to Scarlet it's even more vital that the truth of all this corruption and subterfuge and secrecy comes to light. What sort of world are they living in where the governments are puppets and two powerful families control their country's affairs?  
  
Scarlet has no love for Nohr, nor for Hoshido, really— but she does love Cheve, and it's for Cheve that she's writing this article, for Cheve that she's putting her life on the line in defense of the truth that the people were robbed of knowing. It's more about the truth than it is about the patriotism, in fact; there are people in Hoshido and Nohr, in Nestra and Izumo and the tribe territories, that deserve to know the truth just as much as those in Cheve. Perhaps it's not even for _Cheve_ , really, that she does this— it's for people all across the continent, people who don't deserve to be kept in the dark about the corruption they're living under.  
  
Her pencil has paused its scratching across the paper. The train shifts beneath her, rocking ever so gently but quicker than a cradle would, too quick for it to be anything but a train. Azura breathes in and puts her cigarette out on the back of her hand. Scarlet can smell the burning of her flesh.  
  
"I'm sorry for back there, with the twins," Azura says, knocking Scarlet from her reverie. She hasn't even written much of substance. "I know you're… really… _passionate_ … about your country and your family and such."  
  
Scarlet nods. "It's just," she begins. "There's a lot of suffering in the world, you know? I mean I _know_ you know, you've seen more than your fair share, but— ah, Hell, you know what I mean."  
  
Azura hums. "I suppose I do," she admits. "For the most part, I don't approve of Hoshido in general. But it's treated me better than Nohr ever did, and there are people here worth protecting that the government and the Shirasagis keep ignorant while they gamble with secrets and lives like playthings. I do what I can to keep the joes who've had a little too much juice from spilling out every secret they know, but… well. The walls have ears."  
  
"So I've heard," Scarlet mutters.  
  
"I _do_ want you to get home safe," Azura continues. "But if anyone can get the truth out…"  
  
"I won't be doing it alone, though," Scarlet reminds her. "You… you _are_ sticking with me, right? I mean, I doubt you can just go back to Hoshido now. We're both fugitives. You put a bullet through a cop's hand!"  
  
Azura stares out the window, cigarette smoldering between her fingers. She takes a drag, then blows it out the window. It disperses, but Scarlet imagines the particles mingling with the smoke from the train.  
  
She sighs. "I can't go back to Suzanoh," she admits. "And we've gotten this far. I want to see you get the truth out and get you back home."  
  
Scarlet lets herself grin. "So you're stuck with me, then," she decides.  
  
Azura rolls herm eyes, but her lips curl into a smile. "I can think of worse people to be stuck with." It's as close to a compliment as Azura's given her. Scarlet beams.  
  
"How do you know the Wyrmsbanes, anyway?" Scarlet asks, changing the subject. "You didn't seem all too thrilled to see them."  
  
Azura sighs. "I've had a few run-ins with them," she admits. "I knew of them when I lived in Nohr— but they were kept so under lock and key, we didn't meet until, oh, six years ago? They came in looking for information on Mrs. Shirasagi, and I know her fairly well, so we exchanged information and, turns out, they're her same twins that went missing ages ago. Small world."  
  
She crushes her cigarette butt in her hand and sets it in the ashtray. "They stayed in Suzanoh for about a year and a half, with the Shirasagis. Isuke and Takashi, the Terror Twins— nobody ever called them anything different. Somehow I ended up an informant, and an acessory to their schemes. It's either charm or blackmail or sabotage that kept the Shirasagis from finding out."  
  
"They're good folks, though," Azura admits. "I don't know what it means that they have a house now— though if things go south, we may need to take refuge there. They owe us now."  
  
"What makes you so sure the authorities won't find us?" Scarlet asks.  
  
Azura purses her lips. "Not sure," she says. "They've got… _ways_. Probably magic. Probably related to them… being what they are."  
  
Magic, of course. All of it made Scarlet's head hurt. She scowls and rubs her temples.  
  
"Magic, shapeshifting, prostitution, and drug wars," she mumbles. "This is gonna be a fun story to tell at family dinners."  
  
Azura laughs. For once it doesn't sound bitter— there's a hoarseness in it from the smoke left in her throat, but it's an honest laugh. It is, Scarlet thinks, the most beautiful sound she's ever heard. Heat rises up her neck and to her ears. She can't help but grin, just a little.  
  
"Don't leave anything out," Azura adds. "Include all the excruciating detail. Especially jumping into the river."  
  
"You might have to help me tell it," Scarlet admits. "I won't remember everything."

"Aren't you a journalist?" Azura asks. "You're supposed to have a good memory."  
  
Scarlet snorts. "What do you think the notebook is for?"  
  
The conversation continues from there, but it's significantly lighter. Azura has lots of stories from living in Suzanoh— and she has lots of stories about the people. Scarlet tells a few of hers from living in Tilmere, and gets further into it than she'll admit, but Azura listents with her chin in her hands, absorbing every word Scarlet says. Stories from her teenage years, from when she was in college— lots about her family. Though she feels a pang of homesickness when she thinks about them, and trails off mid-story, staring out the train window. The sun has set. The stars are out, but for once Scarlet doesn't feel like gazing at them.  
  
Azura notices. "You…" she begins. Then she hesitates. "You really miss your family, don't you?"  
  
Scarlet nods. "I hope they're all doing alright," she says. "I mean, unless things in Cheve have escalated since I left, there's no reason they wouldn't be— though things happen, I suppose."  
  
Azura shifts. "I think they'll be alright," she says.  
  
"It's just—" Scarlet sighs, more frustrated with herself than anything else. "I _miss_ them. That's all there is to it! I miss them! I miss being home, playing with my nieces and nephews, chatting with my brothers, tea with my sister. Listening to my aunts gossip and my uncles gamble. Sitting with Gram. It all feels so far away, and yet it feels like if I pinch myself hard enough I can wake up and get right back to it."  
  
"Ah," Azura says. It's all she says.  
  
Scarlet shakes her head. "I guess I just have to get used to it," she admits. "Do you ever feel that way?"  
  
Azura is silent. She swallows. "Sometimes," she admits. "Though I shouldn't."  
  
"Why not?" Scarlet asks.  
  
Azura shakes her head. "My family is dead," she says. "Since I was a kid, it's just been me. I've never really had a family, not like the kind you do. Even if I did, I wouldn't know what to do with it."  
  
Scarlet hesitates. She wants to say something about how there's enough room in her family for more, but that sounds far too intimate a thing to say to Azura, even if Scarlet has just escaped police pursuit, jumped into a river, and snuck onto a train to Izumo with this woman. Scarlet would call them friends, but…  
  
"I guess you don't really have to," Scarlet shrugs. "Whatever works for you, you know? What's important now is getting the truth out."  
  
Azura nods. She frowns, and looks back at Scarlet. "Sykes, do you really think that putting the truth out there will change anything?"  
  
That settles in the pit of Scarlet's stomach, filling her with unease. "Well, I have to try," she says, though she doesn't sound sure even to her own ears.  
  
"What happens if you fail?" Azura asks. Her stare isn't quite cold, but cool— trapping Scarlet beneath its golden gaze like she's a formaldehyde-filled frog pinned to the tray of a seventh grade biology student, and Azura has a scalpel and a pair of tweezers and is ready to cut open her thorax and pull out all her organs. Scarlet feels sick.  
  
She swallows. "I get put down like a mad dog, I guess," she admits.  
  
"Let's say we _do_ succeed," Azura proposes. "Say we find a neutral publication to publish your story. Say we get the truth out. People read your story, people are shocked— who'd have thought that _both_ the continet's superpowers were up so such unsavory business? They learn the truth about the drugs, the plans, the deal with Cheve. _Then_ what?"  
  
Scarlet hesitates.  
  
"What _changes_ , Sykes?" Azura continues. "Do people revolt? Do the von Krakeners and the Shirasagis surrender and promise to be good little corporations from now on? Do the governments pull their heads out of their asses and crack down? Does everyone pull out a gun and start shooting at each other "for peace?" Or does everyone just acknowledge it and go back to the way it was, because they can't _do_ anything about it?"  
  
"I don't _know_ , I don't—" Scarlet cuts herself off, clenching her pencil in her hand. "That's not important right now."  
  
"Maybe, but you can't just ignore it," Azura presses. "You want to save Cheve, right? Then start thinking about what happens when the truth comes out."  
  
Much as Scarlet doesn't want to admit it, Azura's right. She bites the inside of her cheek, glaring hard at the paneling on the inside of the train car. What is she going to do after the truth is out? Is she going to try and whip the people of Cheve into a frenzy, or take it to the governor? Her, a nobody from a family of nobodies?  
  
Azura stands. "I'm gonna grab a drink," she says, tucking her cigarettes into her pocket. "We're not that far from Izumo, but you should grab a few winks anyway."  
  
"Yeah," Scarlet says hoarsely. "Yeah, I will."  
  
Azura leaves, and shuts the door behind her. The sun has set now, and Scarlet can see the ocean and the lights of Izumo in the distance. She can see moonlight glittering off the waves, and although it's lovely, all she can think of is the countless people who will die for no good reason if things turn violent.  
  
Though how many have aready died in the name of science? How many has Hoshido sacrificed trying to test dragonvein? How many has Nohr sacrificed in the drafts, in weeding candidates for the Kingsmen? How many are remembered only with letters sent to their families sugarcoating the fact that they were sacrificial lambs for the lion of progress, telling their loved ones how _valued_ their lives were and how _much_ they brought to the company, how _sorry_ they are for the loss— all of it a pretty lie so the people won't riot?  
  
Is that what will become of Cheve, of the people Scarlet knows and loves? Is Tilmere's fate that it'll be bulldozed and covered in concrete and turned into factories? Is that what Scarlet is going to see her city become, the city that she's called home all her life? And what of her family— what of the people? Will they be allowed to flee with all they can carry, seeking refuge in Nestra or Nohr, or merely lined up and shot if they try? Scarlet's heart aches thinking of her brothers, her sister, her in-laws, her nieces and nephews, her aunts and uncles and cousins, even old Gram, all displaced from the home and the land that Gram's family has lived in since Tilmere's founding.  
  
Scarlet can't write like this. She's tempted to join Azura at the bar, drown her sorrows in cocktails and nicotine, but she can't make herself face Azura now. She takes off her overshirt and leans on the seat, trying to get comfortable and at least _attempt_ rest— she never will if she doesn't try, and there's no telling what may happen once they reach Izumo. She flicks off the light in the compartment and closes her eyes.  
  
She's drifting in and out of a restless sleep, lulled into it by the rocking of the train, when Azura slides the door open as quietly as she can. She shuts it behind her, then flips the sign to 'do not disturb.' She smells like gin and tobacco, quite strongly. She sighs a haggard sigh and Scarlet hears her shuffling. Azura takes a blanket from the storage space above the window and puts it over Scarlet. Scarlet pretends to be asleep.  
  
She idles for a minute. She pushes a loose strand of Charlotte's messy hair from her face, still a little frizzy from their dip in the river. Her touch is tender, almost more so than Scarlet would expect. Azura whispers something in some foreign language— some kind of prayer, maybe, though Azura doesn't strike her as the pious type— then curls up on the other seat, cheek to the upholstery.  
  
Scarlet doesn't really sleep for a long time. But the motion of the train helps, and eventually she finds herself drifting off, the train speeding ever-onwards towards Izumo.


	6. Worth Fighting For

Scarlet wakes, mouth tasting like sawdust, when the train whistle blows and Azura shakes her shoulder. It's dawn, and sunlight pours through the window of the coach. Azura's features look pale and drawn in the morning light, even as it lights her eyes up the same gold as the rising sun.  
  
"Hey," Scarlet says.  
  
"Hey yourself," Azura replies, sounding like she's been gargling sand. "We've reached Izumo. Come on."  
  
Scarlet nods, yawning. She stands, bonks her head on the luggage rack, and hisses a curse under her breath. Azura giggles, just a little. She does look a little frayed— the circles beneath her eyes are darker, her face a little paler than it was last night. Clearly the conversation with the twins took didn't help a restful sleep.  
  
Scarlet shifts the knapsack onto her back. "You don't look well," she says as the two of them move with the rest of the passengers towards the nearest exit.  
  
Azura grimaces. "I think I drank a little too much last night," she says. "I woke up two hours ago feeling like something was playing kickball with my stomach, and had to lose my guts in the washroom."  
  
Scarlet nods. "I understand," she says. "I don't drink much, either. Low tolerance."  
  
Azura hums as they step onto the platform with the tide of passengers. "Remind me not to take _you_ to a bar, then."  
  
The Izumo station is busy— of course it is, it's Izumo's largest. It's built in a very traditional Hoshidan style, though Scarlet doubts the paper lanterns she sees are really paper and instead figures they're just lamps painted to look it. Beyond the station there are buildings in a hodgepodge of shapes, sizes, and colors, with lights stretched across the avenues and around trees. Automobile honks mix with the sounds of people chattering, kinshi fluttering, and horses nickering. Even in the sunrise, Izumo is bustling— it seems nobody rests when there's so much to do and see.  
  
Azura scans the area while Scarlet stares, watching the lanterns hanging from the gates sway in the breeze. Were they upwind of the city, they'd smell the ocean— but as it is, all Scarlet smells is smoke from the train.  
  
Silver sets a hand on Scarlet's shoulder. The spell broken, she looks back at him— the twins are tall, taller than Scarlet, and carrying two identical suitcases, both gray plaid. How do they manage to not mix them up?  
  
"Come on, you two," Silver says. "That story ain't gonna put itself out there, yeah?"  
  
"Oh, right," Scarlet manages. She looks at the list of Izumo publications Silver wrote in her notebook. _The Izumo Star, Eastern Daily, Izumo Weekly, the Izumite Rag_ … there's at least twenty names, all in scratchy handwriting, with addresses and phone numbers. How it all fits on the page, Scarlet doesn't know.  
  
"We should find some place to stay first," Azura suggests. "It may take a while to run the story. We'll need time."  
  
"We don't have time," Scarlet presses. "You know what they're doing!"  
  
"I'm normally first to say when waiting isn't the answer," Ash says. "But 'Zura's right."  
  
Scarlet scowls. Azura squeezes her arm just a little, bringing her back into reality.  
  
"We'll find somewhere," she promises. "You two shouldn't miss your next train."  
  
"Wish we could help more," Silver sighs.  
  
"Looks like you're on your own 'til we meet again," Ash shrugs.  
  
"I was on my own _long_ before I met you," Azura replies. "We'll be alright."  
  
In perfect sync, the twins give identical two-fingered salutes. The big clock in the station says the time is 5:43— early, but not so early that the city sleeps. The twins, however, have a train to catch.  
  
Azura finds a boardinghouse near the station, crammed on the row between a convenience store and a laundromat. They part ways there— Azura promises she'll handle getting them a room, so Scarlet can go find herself some breakfast. Scarlet isn't sure about this, since the last time they separated, Scarlet got interrogated by an agent of chaos in gray pinstripes, but Azura doesn't give her the chance to argue, so she borrows a map from the nearest bus stop and marks out her destinations with her pen.  
  
She squints at the tiny writing in the light of the café. _The Izumite Rag_ isn't too far from the café, but it seems it's not very reputable, so perhaps the _Monday Mirror_ would be a better choice to visit first, or perhaps…  
  
There are too many options. She scowls, then sets her pen down to bite into her coffee cake. It's hard to be annoyed while you're eating a pastry.  
  
And yet Scarlet manages it beautifully. Crumbs scatter on her map and she brushes them off, washing down the bite of coffee cake with a swig of Nohrian espresso. At least, she would've taken a swig of Nohrian espresso, if Azura hadn't snatched it up and taken a sip before she could. Scarlet's scowl lessens, though she's not entirely sure why.  
  
Azura sits down like she owns the place, crossing her legs beneath the café table and setting Scarlet's coffee down. The din is quiet enough she can lean forward and Scarlet can hear her fine, but not so quiet it wouldn't mask them talking.  
  
"I got us a room," she said. "No guarantees on the quality, but it's a place to sleep. Even has heating."  
  
"What'd you do?" Scarlet asks, incredulous.  
  
Azura lifts her shoulders beneath Scarlet's leather jacket. "A little of this, a little of that."  
  
"You seduced him, didn't you?" Scarlet guesses. Azura nods. Scarlet scowls.  
  
Azura snorts. "What's the big deal, Sykes?" she asks, like it really is no big deal. "It got us a room."  
  
"I don't know, it's—" Scarlet fumbles with the words. "Do you really have to do… that? _All_ the time?"  
  
"What do you propose I do?" Azura demands. "And what business is it of _yours_ , anyway?"  
  
"It's not, I know," Scarlet admits.  
  
"Then keep your nose out of it," Azura says. Then her voice softens. She breathes. "It's just what I _do_ , alright? I know what I'm doing."  
  
"It worries me," Scarlet begins.  
  
Azura looks at her like she just said _I need to eat a large, smelly boot._ "What?"  
  
"It _worries_ me," Scarlet repeats. "Don't you ever think that maybe you'll have a roll with someone that, you know, wants more?"  
  
Azura narrows her eyes. "I don't follow."  
  
Scarlet fiddles with her coffee cake. Suddenly she's not hungry anymore— though she _did_ have six cheese-and-sausage pastries before getting her coffee cake. "You mostly seduce men, right? Men are dangerous. I may be an optimist, yeah, but I'm not naïve."  
  
"Get to the point," Azura says, tapping her finger irritably against the coffee mug.  
  
"What I'm saying is you could get yourself hurt, or killed," Scarlet says. "Or any number of other horrible things! How many times have you read some callgirl's name in the news, killed just because of where her job put her? That could be you!"  
  
Her coffee cake crumbles in her hands. "It could be you," she says, looking at the wrought iron of the table. What she doesn't say is _I could lose you_ — because they've only known each other for a day or so. Still, what a day it was! It's hard for Scarlet not to feel some sort of attachment to Azura after what they've been through, what they've promised to do together.  
  
Azura is quiet. She moves the mug to her mouth as if to take a sip, but doesn't. She sighs. "You're too soft for this," she says. "Don't worry about me, Sykes."  
  
"Bit late for that," Scarlet snorts.  
  
"Try anyway," Azura replies.  
  
"I don't think I can," Scarlet says, matter-of-fact. She gestures with her coffee cake, which is mostly crumbs in her clenched hand and scattered on the table and sidewalk. Pigeons have started to pick at the crumbs on the concrete.  
  
"I don't think I _can_ just 'not worry,' Azura," Scarlet repeats. "How am I supposed to _not worry?_ The woman I'm traveling with— who I escaped a police chase and jumped into a river with, who promised me she'd stick with me until we figured out how to get the truth out, who _shot a cop_ in the hand with _my_ gun— could get herself _killed_ by some entitled john with a 38 the next time she tries!"  
  
Azura is quiet. She's been staring at the coffee for quite a while. Scarlet is done talking. She dusts the crumbles of her coffee cake off her hands, throwing the crumbs to the birds. The pigeons flutter and coo excitedly, pecking at the crumbles.  
  
"I suppose I can't stop you from worrying," Azura sighs. "But I _promise_ , I can handle myself. I have for years. The only reason the landlord of the boardinghouse is letting is stay is because I promised to… _visit_ him as long as we're staying, and I don't know how many other places will be willing to do that."  
  
"I _have_ money," Scarlet says. "I could— I could call home for more and get it sent. Azura, this— it just feels wrong."  
  
"Well, so are a _lot_ of things we're doing," Azrua retorts. "You're a fugitive from Hoshido, Sykes, and there's no telling what we'll have to do to stay alive once we put out your story."  
  
"Gotta write the damned thing first," Scarlet mutters. Azura raises an eyebrow.  
  
She sighs. Azura seems unmoving— and she's already made the promise, anyway. Still, it doesn't sit well. Scarlet knows full well that Azura has been a prostitute for half her life anyway, but something about the idea of Azura giving herself over to some man in exchange for a room in a boardinghouse makes Scarlet's lip curl. Perhaps it's because she knows that what led Azura to this point wasn't her choice, even if she says she's fine with it— perhaps it's because she knows that Azura wouldn't do it if there were another viable option. Truth be told, Scarlet can't ask her family to pay her way across the country, and the wire transfer may alert the Hoshidan authorities anyway. Scarlet hates it, but Azura's way is best— at least for now.  
  
"Just…" Scarlet falters, looking back at Azura, swirling the lukewarm coffee in the mug. "Just— if he hurts you, or asks more of you than you can give, or— anything like that, I'll throttle him. And yeah, I'll get us thrown out, probably, but—" _but your safety is worth fighting for. But I'd sleep under a bridge if it meant you were out of harm's way. But yeah, I'm entirely too soft for this, and yeah, I'd do this for any of my friends in a heartbeat, but I couldn't sleep right knowing someone were put in harm's way because of me._ Again, Scarlet says none of that.  
  
Azura shakes her head. "I'd thought the world was all out of angels, Sykes," she admits. She cracks a smile, a real smile, and Scarlet feels her heart skip a beat. "Clearly you're intent to prove me wrong."  
  
"I don't know about angels," Scarlet shrugs, chuckling a little. "But there's good in the world. Things worth fighting for. What that is depends on who you are." She watches the pigeons on the sidewalk as the city wakes, cars shuffling down the street and kinshi crowing at each other from rooftops. People walk down the streets with briefcases and purses, and uniformed kids with backpacks chatter to each other as they walk to school in groups. A bus lurches by filled to the brim with commuters, coughing out exhaust that Scarlet waves from her nose. Seagulls squawk, gathering about the ocean just a few blocks away. The sky is still pink but the clouds from sunrise are clearing, golden sunlight falling in narrow rectangles through the buildings. Smoke and dust filter through the air. Scarlet idly drags a hand through the particles lit up in the morning sunlight. Although she knows that she has a job to do, a story to write, for the moment it feels like her worries, the Hoshidan authorities, the threat of execution hanging over her head— all of that is miles and miles away. All of _this_ , though-- life, living-- all of it is worth fighting for.  
  
Azura watches her smile, watching the people, the life of the city move by like currents in a river. The sea breeze rustles Scarlet's tufts of blonde, mussed from their night on the train and the faintest bit green from river muck still clinging to her hair. Still, she's the closest thing to an angel Azura has ever seen.  
  
_Things worth fighting for,_ her words echo. In the moment, Azura couldn't agree more.  
  
Azura stands. "The landlord told me the flea market is in town," she says. "Mind if I borrow your wallet? I can't get us much of anything as I am now."  
  
Scarlet hands it over. "I was planning on heading to the library," she says. "Apparently there's a really big one on East 22nd. Don't go crazy, alright? Meet me there when you're done."  
  
"Don't worry, I'll bring you back the remains," Azura teases. It's funny, and it makes Scarlet laugh, which makes Azura laugh, just a little— light and soft, and it makes Scarlet's ears flush. She waves goodbye to Azura, watching her back until she gets swept up in the crowd.

* * *

  
So begins living in Izumo. Even if it's temporary, Scarlet adjusts as best as she can— she pores through the records in the city library, wringing them of everything she can that supports her story— which sounds extremely far-fetched since most of the people that gave Azura her information are dead. In the end her piece is a theory and not an article, stringing together bits of news that don't quite add up, but it's a piece and it's more than just her word.  
  
Unfortunately, it gets her laughed out of most publications she tries. She crosses out the publications on Sil's list as she goes to them, all of them refusals. The list gets shorter and shorter as the days go by, spent refining and re-doing and searching with increasing fervor for something. Scarlet and Azura see very little of each other in these two weeks, but Scarlet is so consumed with her search for evidence that it gets her out of the boardinghouse early in the morning and back only when she's dead on her feet and collapses on the lumpy bed they have to share.  
  
It is two weeks after their arrival in Izumo that Azura wakes first, feeling like her insides are sloshing around in an attempt to emulate the tides. It's unusual that she has as of late— but her bones ache so much it's hard to make herself get up as early as she normally does.  
  
Even then, it's after sunrise. Scarlet snores beside her in the musty-smelling bed, beneath the hodgepodge of quilts, in her t-shirt and smalls with her daywear draped over an old chair. The room Azura got for them in the boardinghouse is a spare one, left unused and turned into storage, but it has a bed and that's all they need. So Azura wakes to the hissing of the boiler and the sunlight through the dusty window, and Scarlet's skin heavy on hers.  
  
It takes a moment for her sleep-addled mind to register that Scarlet has, in her sleep, pulled her close— an arm around her waist and the other her shoulders, a hand tangled in her hair, tucking Azura's head beneath her chin. Azura peels herself away, intending to get herself ready for the day, but something stops her.  
  
The sunlight through the window falls over the room. It makes the grime seem like clouds of fairy dust, lit up gold in the sunshine, and when it falls over Scarlet it lights up every freckle on her cheek, turns her blonde hair gold, caresses her skin like she's a creature of light itself. There are circles beneath her eyes but the creases in her face are gone, replaced with the softness of slumber. _She's beautiful,_ Azura realizes.  
  
Perhaps it's her headache, but she lies back down on the bed, facing Scarlet. For a moment Azura wants to wrap herself in Scarlet's embrace again, pretend… what, exactly? That they're lovers? That anyone _could_ love Azura? That she's safe in the arms of the _one person_ in the _rotten world_ that likes her for _her_ and not her body?  
  
Scarlet stirs, mumbling something indistinct. Azura's reminded of her nausea by a particularly sickening lurch of her insides, and pulls away. She must be coming down with something.  
  
When Scarlet wakes, Azura is retching her insides into the commode in the tiny washroom in the hall. Somehow it's not quite the same vision of sleepy morning beauty Azura saw— these things are rarely fair.  
  
The day progresses normally from there— at least the relative level of such that they've settled into. Scarlet finishes her list and crosses out the final name, and with it, crosses out any hope of getting her story to the people. It's a blow to her pride and her spirits, but she half-hopes some opportunity will fall out of the sky.  
  
She and Azura meet up for dinner at a malt shop. Scarlet doesn't even feel like digging into her burger— with nobody willing to take her story (and no proof of their claims anyway) there's little point in even staying in Izumo. Maybe theres somewhere else out there that'll take the piece, but Scarlet isn't particularly optimistic.  
  
"I've pitched it twenty times," she sighs to Azura. "And rewritten it fifteen. The librarian knows me by _name_. And _still_ —"  
  
Azura hums. "Maybe there's still a few people we haven't tried," she suggests.  
  
Scarlet pokes at her french fries with another french fry. "Maybe," she says glumly. "But I doubt they're worth listening to if they're desperate enough to run my story. I just want to get the truth out— but I suppose the trouble with that is that nobody will believe it if I don't have something aside from _it's the truth, I swear."_  
  
"We knew it was going to be hard," Azura says, in that frustratingly cryptic way she has.  
  
Scarlet isn't in the mood. "We did, and do, but saying so isn't helpful."  
  
Azura will admit to this. "Fair enough."  
  
Someone slides up to the booth. "Did somebody mention the truth?"  
  
Scarlet turns. There's a kid sitting backwards in a chair— a girl with blonde hair in short curls, wearing a Nohrian school uniform, complete with the sweater vest. She's about fifteen with full-blooded Nohrian features and dimples that show when she grins, resting her hands on her pudgy cheeks. The top button of her shirt is undone, and she spreads her legs on the chair in a way that's very unladylike and makes her plaid uniform skirt bunch up. Her socks are falling down, and her saddle shoes are mislaced, and though she looks as sweet as can be, there's a glint of unmistakable chaotic energy in her gray eyes. Scarlet isn't sure if she trusts this apple-cheeked youngin.'  
  
Azura raises an eyebrow. "And who might you be?"  
  
"You two can call me Digits," the kid says. "I ran into our mutual friends the twins at the train station— I can't stay for long because I need to get back to my class, but I think I can help."  
  
Scarlet raises an eyebrow. "You can?"  
  
Digits claps her hands and steals one of Scarlet's fries. "See, you I like," she decides. "None of that 'I don't ordinarily hear out kids, but I'm desperate' or 'are you sure little girls should be doing what you're doing.' Right to the point, with respectable skepticism. I like that in a woman. Even if you're a little old for me."  
  
Scarlet isn't sure who exactly this kid is, but she feels a little insulted— she's not _that_ old, even if she's twice Digits' age. "Who exactly _are_ you? How do you know the twins?"  
  
"We've crossed paths now and then," Digits says, waving a hand and stealing another fry. Scarlet pushes her plate further away, and Digits lunges across the table and grabs a handful before sitting back down. "Anyway. Have either of you heard of Radio Nessie?"  
  
Scarlet hasn't. She looks at Azura— who for once looks equally blank. She shakes her head.  
  
Digits grins, like that's exactly the point. "That's who I represent," she says. "Radio Nessie: Radio for the people. It's mostly a Nohrian thing— most Hoshidan and neutral stations don't really get Nohrian channels— but it's the truth, straight from the source. You heard it here first, folks!"  
  
Scarlet remains unconvinced. "You and every other news outlet," she mutters. "So how do they know what you say is true?"  
  
"I've got pretty… intimate inside connections with a lot of what goes on amidst the Nohrian higher-ups," Digits says, and it doesn't seem like she's lying. "The government. Krakener Arms. I have my ways."  
  
"Forgive me for not believing you right away," Azura says, brows furrowed. "But I'm not convinced."  
  
Digits shrugs. "I don't have to convince you," she says. "All I have to do is tell you that I want to take a look at that story you're trying to pitch. I'll see if I can verify it with my sources, and if it all checks out, I'll run it on my show."  
  
Scarlet considers this. She looks to Azura, then to Digits, then back to Azura.  
  
Azura shrugs. "It's the best chance we have," she admits. "And, Sykes— it's _your_ story."  
  
"But you've come with me this far, Azura," Scarlet protests. "It's not right if you don't get _any_ input on how we deal. Do you think this is a good idea?"  
  
"It's the best one we have," Azura repeats. "So I say do it. Opportunities like this don't just drop out of the sky."  
  
Scarlet takes the folder with her story out of her knapsack. She breathes. "Alright, Digits," she says. "You have a deal."  
  
Digits grins like she knew this would be the outcome. She takes the folder and skims the typewritten pages. "Scarlet Sykes," she murmurs. "Good name for a reporter."  
  
"Thank you," Scarlet says, for lack of anything else.  
  
Digits skims the piece. Her eyes widen halfway through. When she finishes, she looks up at Scarlet— the grin that she had was gone, as are all traces of amusement.  
  
"This is a pretty serious accusation," she says carefully. "Can I—"  
  
"The walls have ears," Azura murmurs. "We've traveled from Suzanoh while trying to avoid the Shirasagis' people in order to tell you this."  
  
"I'll back it up with my people," Digits says. "Mind if I keep this?"  
  
"Go ahead," Scarlet says. "I've written down the number of where we're staying."  
  
Digits nods. "I'll call you if it works out," she says. She glances at a gang of Nohrian private school kids in gray sweater vests congregating outside the malt shop, and ducks off the chair to between the windows. Her uniform is the same— must be her school.  
  
"I need to go," she says, sticking Scarlet's story into her bag. "I've got thirty seconds to put my pants back on and I don't think I can do that while talking business." Scarlet decides not to question that. Digits ducks into the washroom and emerges in trousers, and doesn't spare them a second glance as she hurries into the crowd outside the malt shop.  
  
Scarlet breathes. She watches Digits disappear into the ocean of schoolchildren, then looks back to Azura. Her hands tingle. Maybe she should eat something other than caffiene, like she's failed to do the past two weeks. She shoves a handful of fries into her mouth and regrets it immediately.  
  
She swallows her mouthful and washes it down with a gulp of her soda. Azura, who still hasn't touched her chicken sandwich, laces her fingers.  
  
"Did that _really_ just happen?" Scarlet finally asks. "Because I'm not quite certain."  
  
"It was out of the blue," Azura admits. "And— Radio Nessie? I've never heard of such a station, though it's far from unbelievable that it exists."  
  
"It's the only chance we have," Scarlet shrugs. "I'm willing to take a chance."  
  
Azura nods. "Then I'll go with you," she decides. "If this "Digits" is truly helpful in her intentions, then we'll both follow through with the lead."  
  
Scarlet's eyes shine. "Thanks, Azura," she says. "For sticking with me."  
  
Azura shrugs. She avoids Scarlet's eyes. "Well, it's only natural that I would," she says.  
  
Scarlet shakes her head. She lowers her voice. "No," she says. "No, you could go home any time and— sure, maybe there'd be some issues, but you'd still be alive. But instead you're sticking it out here… I know it's tough for you, especially with… everything. I just want to thank you for staying with me."  
  
Azura's cheeks flush, noticable against the creamy brown of her skin. It's not quite the same shade as her lipstick, but perhaps someday Scarlet will make her blush that shade. "Well, then," she mumbles. "You're very welcome, miss Sykes."  
  
"Aw," Scarlet grins. "I think we've been through enough you can call me Scarlet, don't you think?"  
  
"Scarlet." Azura tries out the name, odd and new on her tongue. Scarlet's ears heat up. Azura grins, though it seems a little pained. She excuses herself to the washroom— Scarlet figures she must still be feeling sick. Scarlet decides she'll insist Azura get some rest tomorrow.  
  


* * *

  
  
In the washroom, Azura breathes heavily through her mouth, tasting bile on her tongue. She heaves, retches into the commode, feels the sting of it when she tries to breathe. She must be coming down with something— that has to be it. When her stomach is finished, she pulls herself off her knees and shuffles to one of the sinks.  
  
She catches sight of herself in the mirror. She feels terrible, and looks it— her makeup is ruined, and there are circles under her eyes no amount of concealer can cover up, and she looks like she hasn't slept well in a week. But there's no changing that now— she washes the ruined makeup off her face, scrubbing at it with a paper towel until her cheeks feel raw. Someone else enters the ladies' room, but she pays them no mind.  
  
With shaky hands, Azura fumbles in her purse for her compact. She nearly drops the thing down the drain, and mutters a curse.  
  
The woman at the next sink glances over. "Jeez," she says, almost sneering, though the way she looks Azura up and down seems almost pitying. "What happened to you?"  
  
Azura glances back, hands paused. The woman at the other sink is in violet Nohrian fatigues, blonde hair in a knot at the back of her head. Her jacket is undone, sleeves pushed up, over her white undershirt, the swell of her breasts evident in the way her brass tags rest on them alone. Not military, then— their tags are aluminum, and there's more of them. It's too tiny for even Azura's sharp eyes to have any hope of reading the name engraved in the brass, but she tried. The woman is taller than Azura, though that's not a hard feat, and weightier, it seems, in every way. The baby-pink polish on her hands doesn't suit the strength Azura can see in her thick arms, and her makeup looks flawless but also like she's trying to say I'm a delicate ingénue naïve to the ways of the world where she looks like she'd be more suited to saying I can run circles around any of you silly men and you know it.  
  
Azura shrugs. "I'm sick," she says, peering in the mirror to smear the foundation over her cheeks. That's all she says.  
  
The other woman snorts, pulling a tube of coral-pink lipstick from her purse and touching up the color on her lips. "Sick and still out on a date? That's committment."  
  
"It's not a date," Azura replies. "My partner and I are celebrating that her story got accepted to run on a radio station. She's very proud of it."  
  
The other woman hums. She doesn't buy it, even though it's only half a lie. "Certainly smells like you're sick somethin' awful."  
  
"Yes, well," Azura mutters. "I apologize if the smell of my regurgitated lunch offends your sensibilities, ma'am."  
  
The other woman smacks her lips, smirks at her reflection, then turns to Azura. She leans on the sink with one hip. "Sorry to hear you're sick and all, sweetheart," she says. "How long's it been happening?"  
  
Azura thinks back. "A few weeks, about," she guesses. "I'm not usually one to come down with bugs, but it seems even I'm not invincible."  
  
Another hum. "Sounds pretty bad," the other woman admits. "Let me guess— you're also tired all the time, and aching constantly, and hungrier than you used to be? And you have no idea _how_ this could've happened?"  
  
Azura rolls her eyes. "I know what you're insinuating," she says. "And I don't appreciate it. Besides, I couldn't be pregnant, I'm on—" the realization hits her all at once. She's on "family planning," and just picked up a new dose, but— oh, _right_ , it's still sitting in her apartment, unopened and untaken. Azura buries her face in her hands. This is _just_ what she needs.  
  
"Perfect," she says, laughing hollowly. "My first unwanted pregnancy. That has to be some kind of record— ten years working the oldest profession with no little surprises!"  
  
"Mm-hmm." The other woman smirks at her. "Ah, well. These things happen. What are you going to do?"  
  
Azura sighs. She stares at her sunken-eyed reflection in the mirror. The mirror gives her skin a green tinge that makes it look even less healthy. Who is she trying to fool, anyway?  
  
She turns her head to look at the other woman, who's folded her arms and is tapping a finger on her arm. Strangely, she feels like crumpling— she's put up the act of being strong and unaffected by any words anyone can hurl at her for so long, pretended to be attracted to the landlord so he'd keep letting them stay in the boardinghouse, pretended she didn't want to keep sinking in the moment that morning when Scarlet held her— all of it makes her feel sick, like it's just now sunk in that she's a fake who's made a living for the past ten years by faking and lying and sleeping with people she didn't care about and didn't want to sleep with that'd just end up dead anyway, and now she's been ripped away from the only life she's ever known but found herself caught up with a woman who treats her like she's a person, who she's known for two weeks but she's been through so much with her in so little time that being without her would feel scary and new all over again, but at the same time they're from such different worlds that trying to have any kind of friendship with any emotional depth could scare her away, and Azura is terrified of being so sure that she wants a friend like Sykes that she lets herself share and ends up pushing her away— the first friendship, real friendship, that Azura has ever had and she ruined it because the universe just doesn't want to let her have things. And now she's pregnant, probably, and in some city she doesn't know and has to deal with that somehow, and suddenly everything is far more terrifying than it was even an hour before.  
  
Tears start running down her cheeks before she has a chance to try and stem them. Before she knows what she's doing her face crumples and her chest shakes and this stranger, this woman she's just met in a malt shop ladies' room, has her hands on her shoulders and keeps her steady, letting her cry it out and then spill everything, every filthy bit of tragedy that's made up Azura's life and what's made her current predicament.  
  
The woman— Charlotte Hackins, a Nohrian border guard— dabs Azura's tears away with a lacy handkerchief when she's finished, and presses it into Azura's hands. Azura takes it, even though she's run out of tears and is now feeling slightly better but hoarse and dizzy, and watches as Charlotte grips the sink hard enough that her hands smash through the porcelain and dig out two matching chunks that smash in her hands and on the tile floor. Azura stares in awe.  
  
Charlotte breathes. "Quite a story," she manages.  
  
"You just—" Azura croaks. She swallows. "You just broke that sink."  
  
"I get real pissed when I hear about girls like you, babydoll," Charlotte replies, cracking her knuckles. Azura steps back. "Not at you," Charlotte adds quickly. "No, no, I'm pissed at those _assholes_ that put you into this mess. Fuckin'…" She trails off into angry grumbles, looking at her glowering face in the mirror. She's twisted her painted face into an ugly snarl. "Fuckin' meat-beatin' joes ruin everything they can get their damned _filthy_ hands on!"  
  
"I'm sorry," Azura chokes out. She can't say much besides that.  
  
Charlotte shakes her head and runs a hand through the loose strands that escaped from her bun. "You don't need to be," she says. She makes herself calm down, and unclench her fists from the broken remnants of the sink. " _Gods_ — I'm gonna track down every Harry, Dick, and Tom that ever thought it was alright to lay their grubby paws on you, hurt you like that, and I'm gonna make _damned_ sure they're never gonna hurt anybody else like that."  
  
Azura swallows. "Why?"  
  
That gives Charlotte pause. She looks at Azura, softening her face. "Why what?"  
  
"Why would you go through all that trouble?" Azura clarifies. "You don't even know me."  
  
"I know enough," Charlotte shrugs. "'Cause there's things in the world worth fighting for, and for me it's the girls I meet that got the short end of the fuckin' stick."  
  
_Things worth fighting for._ It echoes again, and it couldn't be a more perfect refrain of what Scarlet said two weeks ago. Azura believed her then— though now she's even more certain. What does _Azura_ fight for? She supposes she'll have to find out.  
  
Azura makes herself smile, and before she knows it, she's smiling for real. "Thanks, Charlotte," she says. "I mean it."  
  
Charlotte grins with half her face. "Don't mention it, babydoll," she replies. "And— hold on. Your hands are shaking. Lemme help you with your paint before you go back out."  
  
And Azura lets her, and she leaves the washroom with red lips and no more tear tracks on her cheeks.  
  
Scarlet's left the table, Azura finds when she steps back out into the malt shop. She's bought herself a chocolate milkshake and drained half of it, and paid for the meal, but doesn't seem to be done with it. The kid behind the counter said she stepped out to the pay phone across the street to make a phone call. Did Azura take that long in the washroom?  
  
Perhaps she did. Azura pulls her coat a little tighter around her shoulders as she looks for the phone booth. It's dark out, though Izumo hasn't yet gone to sleep. Dark clouds boil overhead with a storm sweeping in from the sea, damp and windy and smelling like brine.  
  
Azura hurries across the street, wind whipping her hair around her face, to the bank of phone booths across the way. The light is on in one, and Azura can see Scarlet's telltale short, round shape and the light of her blonde hair. She has her back to Azura, and she's leaning against the phone booth's pockmarked glass wall.  
  
Azura comes around the side. "Scarlet?" she calls. "Scarlet, are you—" she loses her voice when Scarlet shifts, head lifting.  
  
Scarlet moves more slowly than she should, clutching something at her side. She's hunched over, and in a second, Azura can see why— the shimmer of blood coming from between her fingers, and the hilt of a knife buried in her side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	7. Gale

Azura _hates_ hospitals.

She always has— and now every piece of equipment, every bottle of pills are marked with Shirasagi and bear the little white dragon in the red circle that says the family's name without words. She's thrown up four times in the waiting room bathroom in the time she's been waiting and whether it's anxiety or morning sickness is impossible to tell. It was just insult to injury after the first time, anyway— there's nothing left in her stomach to come out. She could really use a cigarette, but there's no smoking allowed in the main wing.  
  
Scarlet's napping when Azura is allowed to enter the ward, led by a nurse in an apron with enough starch to qualify it as a weapon. The remnants of her lunch sit on a plate that has yet to be taken away, next to a cheap vase full of cheaper flowers on the table next to the hospital bed. Scarlet breathes evenly, her cheek on the off-white pillowcase. Azura draws the privacy curtain shut and perches on the end of the bed, careful not to sit on Scarlet's feet. She brushes a strand of blonde out of Scarlet's eyes.  
  
Azura sighs and the bedframe squeaks, punctuated with other squeaks mixed with the quiet chatter of the ward. She pictured her first visit with Scarlet after the stabbing incident would be a little more… interesting? Emotionally fraught?  
  
Scarlet grimaces, then opens her eyes. The grimace turns into a half-grin when she sees Azura. "Hey," she says.  
  
"Hey yourself," Azura replies. "How are you feeling?"  
  
Scarlet tries to sit up and fails. "Can't complain," she decides. "The steak here is awful, though. I didn't know it was possible to have a steak be well-done and still taste rubbery."  
  
Azura chuckles halfheartedly. Scarlet's glib nature is contagious, and even now Azura is powerless to resist. "I understand," she admits. "I'm not a fan of hospitals, either."  
  
"Speaking from experience?" Scarlet asks, raising an eyebrow. She certainly sounds like herself, but the hospital gown and the ID bracelet distract from it. The metal frame of the bed creaks when Scarlet shifts.  
  
Azura thinks, for a moment, about just nodding and leaving it at that— but Scarlet deserves more than vagueness from the woman that's repeatedly yanked her out of her comfort zone. "A couple of years ago," she says, shrugging. "One of my clients didn't want to go quietly, and didn't take kindly to me asking him politely to leave, either. He got a bit… grabby. I woke up the next morning in a hospital with six stitches in my forehead and Mrs. Shirasagi yelling at her agents for not sending someone to check on me sooner."  
  
Scarlet nods. She doesn't know what to address first. "You remember the _exact_ number of stitches?"  
  
"That's what you ask about first?" Azura replies, raising an eyebrow.  
  
"Well, it's what sticks out," Scarlet admits. "What happened to the guy?"  
  
Azura smirks, just a little. "He mysteriously paid my medical bill and then the cops fished him out of the river," she replies.  
  
"Good riddance," Scarlet decides.  
  
Azura hums. She has her hands folded on her lap. The weight of the visit hangs heavy in the air between them— Azura's reminded of it every time her focus settles on the thin blue curtain, the feel of the wool blanket beneath her, the illusory weight of the medical bills in her purse, the sound of dripping IVs and clattering equipment on medical carts, the squeaking of other bedframes in the ward, the breathing and quiet chatter of the other patients and visitors, the cheap flowers, the crooked nightstand, the metal plate, the paper bracelets around Scarlet's wrist.  
  
Scarlet wants to hold her hand. But the stitches still hurt, tugging at muscles still sewn back together, damaged tissue still tingling from the liberal dose of anasthesia they used in the operating room. Azura probably wouldn't appreciate it anyway. She lets her hand relax.  
  
"I would've visited sooner," Azura murmurs. "But I'm not immediate family or your spouse, so they didn't let me."  
  
"Yeah," Scarlet sighs. "But I wouldn't have minded the company."  
  
Azura nods. The indistinct chatter of the ward fills her mind like static. It's on the tip of her tongue to ask Scarlet if she remembers the assault, but perhaps it's not a good idea to bring it up— and it was so dark, it was likely Scarlet didn't see her attacker. Whoever it was didn't take her wallet, so either they'd done it because they were stab-happy or they'd done it to send a message.  
  
She breathes. "Turns out I'm pregnant," she says. Why bother dancing around it? "It's why I've been feeling so bad since we got here."  
  
Scarlet jerks so abruptly her face contorts in pain and she doubles over, clutching the stitches at her side. "You're—"  
  
Azura nods emptily. "I suppose I couldn't avoid it forever," she admits. "And I don't think the father is the landlord, either, because I had morning sickness before we came to Izumo."  
  
Scarlet breathes, recovering from yanking at her stitches— still, she's glad she was lying down. "Do you think you'll keep it?"  
  
Azura hadn't even considered that. "Gods, I don't know," she mumbles. "We may not have a choice. I know a doctor who does that, but he's all the way up in Suzanoh, and we can't go back there. And even if I could find one locally, I couldn't do it while you're recovering because we can't afford us both out of commission— and by the time you're fully recovered, it might be too late to do anything but keep it."  
  
It's all one shitty circumstance after another, like a leaning tower of if-thens and or-buts. Scarlet runs a hand through her hair. "Shit, Azura," she breathes.  
  
"Yeah." Azura won't meet her eyes. She looks at her knees, pressed together while she sits on the edge of the bed. She's in a red coat today. She looks good in red. Scarlet wonders how she didn't notice that before.  
  
Azura breathes. "On the bright side, the doctors tell me that you can get out of here soon," she says. "Another two days, they say. Just to make sure nothing's getting infected. Then I can take you back to the house."

Scarlet lets herself lean back against the pillows. "That's good, at least," she decides.  
  
"How are you feeling?" Azura asks, again. "Be honest."  
  
Scarlet thinks. "A little deflated," she admits. "Tired. Homesick. My knees are stiff and my side hurts every time I move. But mostly I'm just glad to be alive."  
  
"I don't know how you do it," Azura remarks. "You're still smiling."  
  
Scarlet grins. Her freckly cheeks are a little less full than Azura remembers them the day before yesterday, and there's a fragility to her grin and a tenseness in her frame like she's subconsciously preparing herself to run if something attacks her again. Azura knows that tenseness. Azura's lived that tenseness since she was nearly-thirteen and spent her first night in a boxcar, and lost a fistfight with an old man over half a loaf of bread.  
  
"I try," Scarlet shrugs, then winces when it tugs her stitches.  
  
"Don't strain yourself too much," Azura scolds her. "The more you squirm, the longer you stay." _And the higher the bill_ … though Azura's trying not to think about that. She wonders if the hospital will let her pay in cash once Scarlet's stay is up. (She really, really hopes so. Any transaction might get them back onto Hoshido's radar, and they can't afford to be running again with Scarlet in her condition.)  
  
Scarlet snorts. "I'll be fine," she insists. "I'm very tough— ow!" She winces, yanking at her stitches. Azura rolls her eyes.  
  
"One of these days," she mumbles. "You're going to push yourself too hard and bleed to death."  
  
Scarlet grins apologetically, though pained. "I'll do my best not to bleed too much, then," she decides. "For your sake."  
  
Azura flushes to the tips of her ears. "You'd better not," she mumbles.  
  
"Promise," Scarlet insists. "I'll refrain from going into any seedy alleyways or dangerous phone booths."  
  
It's a small comfort, but any comfort at all is something. Thunder rumbles outside— it's started to rain, an early-autumn squall that's intent to dump pounds and pounds of rain onto the coastal city Izumo calls a capitol. The ocean churns with the tempest to come. Water sloshes onto the lower streets, and the city closes the beaches, puts down barriers and tightens traffic regulation on the detour routes. Azura has never lived in a coastal city before, so it's interesting to watch. Unfortunately the rain also means she probably won't get as much "business" today— unfortunate, really. She'll need a few more thousand to pay everything off.  
  
A nurse pushes the curtain aside to tell her that visitation hour is over. Azura nods and goes quietly, wanting to give Scarlet's hand a reassuring squeeze, but doesn't. She regrets it when she leaves the ward and leans on the wall outside the double doors leading to the womens' ward, running a hand through her hair and trying not to cry.  
  
Charlotte catches her when she enters the waiting room again. Her friend is with her— a big man in violet fatigues and brass tags that takes up two waiting room seats and hands Azura a boxed sandwich he got from a vending machine. Benny, Charlotte called him, if Azura recalls correctly.  
  
"So how is it?" Charlotte asks her, voice low. Her makeup is immaculate as always, pastel pink and demure and curly-lashed, showing off the baby blue of her eyes. She brushes some of Azura's hair from her face.  
  
"Scarlet will live," Azura says tightly. She grips the foil packaging of the sandwich Benny gave her— fried noodles and pickled ginger. "I have more money to raise, but it's nothing I can't do."  
  
"Anything Benny and I can do to help?" Charlotte asks. Her expression says _I can be your shoulder to cry on, promise,_ but Azura knows what she's really saying is _let me fight your problems, please._ Azura shakes her head.  
  
"I can handle it," she promises. "You and Benny need to go back to the border soon, though, don't you?"  
  
Charlotte sighs. "Some fuckin' vacation this has been, big guy," she comments, looking to Benny.  
  
"I don't know, it's been nice," Benny rumbles in reply. "We got to see the salt flats, and that big kinshi flock take off that one time, and the ferry ride from Nestra was nice."  
  
"Yeah, well," Charlotte shrugs. "I'll be glad to get home and see my parents again."  
  
Benny nods his agreement. Azura can't relate.  
  
The sky rumbles when the three of them leave the hospital. Rain pounds onto the city sidewalks and runs into the storm drains in rivers. Azura grimaces, and Benny fights with a huge black umbrella until Charlotte helps him open it.  
  
"At least let us walk you back to your place," Charlotte offers.  
  
"I'll be fine," Azura promises. "You two go on. You've better things to do than tend to me."  
  
Benny sighs. "Charlotte, give her the card," he mumbles to Charlotte.  
  
"Why do you always make me—" Charlotte sighs. "Whatever. Hey, Azura— if you're ever around the Nohr-Chevois border and need a hand, just call, alright? We'll be there."  
  
Charlotte hands her a crumpled piece of paper with two phone numbers written in hastily-scribbled pen. Azura smiles at the gesture, and tucks it into her blouse.  
  
"I'll keep you in mind," she promises. "Thanks, Charlotte."  
  
"Anytime," Charlotte grins. The two of them venture out into the rainy streets, leaving Azura under the awning of the hospital visitor's entrance. Azura sighs, a small smile crossing her face. She's never had friends before. She's glad it was them she made friends with.  
  
The sky churns, dark and tumultuous. Azura watches people walk by with umbrellas and with hoods and collars pulled over their heads. Across the street in front of a block of townhouses, a group of girls pack up their jump rope and run inside. Sidewalk chalk drawings fade to nothing as the rain washes over the concrete. It's a scene Azura has watched from her fire escape in Suzanoh— watching life go by around her, wondering if, in another life, she could've been one of those little girls playing jump rope and make-believe with her friends.  
  
A white car with tinted windows pulls up in front of the hospital, tires squealing on the wet roads. It looks too expensive for the neighborhood— but then, it's the kind of fancy car that'd look out of place anywhere but the highest-society streets. Azura can tell the people that own it are the kind of people that have never cleaned a bathroom in their lives.  
  
Azura feels cold. A woman in dark glasses with a scar across her face rolls down the bulletproof window on the passengers' side. It's Ikeda— Azura curses. She'd thought they'd left the Hoshidan authorities behind when they jumped into the river.  
  
"Get in," Ikeda orders.  
  
Azura will do nothing of the sort. She bolts, as fast as her legs will carry her, as well as she can with her shoes not wanting to grip the rain-soaked concrete.  
  
She hears the screech of the tires and runs. Down the hills, over the streetcar tracks, through crowds of people carrying umbrellas and briefcases. She darts out into oncoming traffic and barely makes it through— people honk and shout but she pays them no mind. Down a hill. Up another. Through an alley and around the back of a department store. She hits a dead end in a vacant lot and heaves a breath, spitting rainwater and rain-soaked hair from her mouth. She's soaked to the bone. The rain still pours.  
  
But she doesn't hear the sound of the car. Perhaps against her better judgement, she slumps against the wall and breathes.  
  
A gunshot. The bullet grazes her cheek and embeds itself in the brick wall behind her. Azura feels her heart stop.  
  
Yukimura holds the trigger of the smoking gun. He tsks, swiping rain from the brim of his felt hat. He steps closer, and next to him, Ikeda twirls her butterfly knife around her fingers. She's not smiling, and that, Azura thinks, is the most chilling part.  
  
"Shame it's raining," Yukimura remarks. "I could've missed my mark."  
  
Azura feels blood drip down her cheek, thinning in the rainwater, running down her jaw and dripping from her chin. She can't make herself speak.  
  
Ikeda steps forward. "I like killing," she says, turning Azura around and pressing her to the wall with absolutely no effort despite Azura's struggle. "I truly do. But this— this makes things complicated." She snarls the word complicated like complexity is the real villain. "Mikoto won't be happy to hear her precious canary has turned traitor."  
  
"But it doesn't have to be like that," Yukimura admits, tucking his gun back into his coat. "If you tell us everything you know and come home quietly, I may even be able to pull some strings and leave the muckraker alive."  
  
Azura feels her throat close up. "Don't hurt her," she manages. Ikeda grabs her arm and twists it back, her grip around Azura's wrist like she could snap it any minute.  
  
She can practically feel Yukimura raise an eyebrow. "Oh? What's this?"  
  
"She didn't do anything," Azura says. Ikeda twists her arm further and Azura cries out, gritting her teeth against the pain. "Sh-she's just a journalist. Leave her be."  
  
"I'm afraid we can't do that, Azura," Yukimura says cooly. "Rules are rules. You know full well the reason Hoshido is as safe as it is is because the higher-ups look out for those below. We keep our secrets close, and our secret-keepers closer. And when one of our secret-keepers flies the coop…"  
  
Reina squeezes her wrist, twists her arm. Azura feels tears gather in her eyes— she won't scream, she won't scream, she won't—  
  
"You understand, don't you?" Yukimura asks, voice foggy through the pain in Azura's arm. He's leaned closer.  
  
Azura swallows. She nods.  
  
"Good." Yukimura draws back. The pain lessens. "Now what does she know? And I'll have Reina snap your wrist like a twig if you don't tell the truth. You know what's at stake."  
  
"I told her the truth," Azura says, as well as she can. Ikeda twists her arm and she sucks in a breath, biting down hard on the inside of her cheek. "I t-told her— told her everything. She knows— knows everything I ever heard about— about—"  
  
"About?" Yukimura prompts. He nods to Ikeda, who drives her head further against the brick. Azura cries out again, tasting the rainwater and the dirt on the brick wall.  
  
"D-dragonvein," Azura manages. "Dragonvein, what Hoshido did with it, what Nohr wants with it— _gah_ — she knows, she knows all of it, I told her— told her—"  
  
"Drop her," Yukimura orders. Ikeda releases her, letting her drop onto the wet ground. It's cold, but Azura has never felt such a relief as when she draws her arm back to be the right way around.  
  
Azura breathes in a shaky breath. Ikeda and Yukimura mutter to each other where Azura can't hear— though all she's focused on is that her bones aren't broken. She pulls herself to her feet, rolling her shoulder to help it recover.  
  
Ikeda opens the passenger door of the car. "Get in," she says again. Azura's knees tighten. Ikeda doesn't give her a choice, and pushes her into the backseat anyway.  
  
She drips rainwater all over the expensive leather seats, though she couldn't be further from caring. She squeezes the water out of her braid, forming a puddle on the floor of the car. It chugs to life when Yukimura starts it, and when Azura looks up she can see Ikeda keeping an eye on her from the passenger's seat. She shifts a little. The car starts moving out of the lot and down the street.  
  
"Azura, dear," a soft voice says— Azura would know that voice anywhere. It's Mikoto Shirasagi herself, sitting with her legs crossed on the other side of the back seat. Azura wonders if this is how Mikoto treats all her guests.  
  
"Mrs. Shirasagi," Azura replies.  
  
Mrs. Shirasagi offers a soft smile. She looks like she should be stitching flowers onto a baby blanket for her granddaughter, with old jazz records playing from the phonograph and a cup of her favorite tea with cream and sugar sitting beside her floral-upholstered armchair. And yet here she is, corporate empress of a family whose affairs she barely knows. Mikoto almost makes Azura sad, in that regard— there are so many things she does with pure intentions that the state turns around and makes into tools for its own use.  
  
She can't hate Mikoto, not truly. Not after all she's tried to do.  
  
She offers Azura a towel. It's soft and fluffy, clearly freshly-laundered. Azura peels her soaking wet coat from her shoulders and leaves it on the seat with a wet slap. It'd be rude to refuse the hospitality.  
  
"I was so worried about you, Azura," she says, hands folded on her lap, while Azura starts rubbing her hair dry. "When Reina told me you'd been kidnapped, I—" her voice breaks. "I couldn't help but remember ill memories, long past though they are. You always did remind me so much of my children."  
  
Mikoto dabs at her eyes with her lacy handkerchief without smudging any bit of her immaculate makeup. Her reading glasses hang from the collar of her blouse, and the silver in her hair makes her look like somebody's little old grandmother that wouldn't hurt a fly. Azura can't hate Mikoto, but she hates it when she does that— when she makes herself look so soft, so maternal, so _pathetic_.  
  
"I'm alright, ma'am, I promise," Azura says.  
  
Mikoto smiles gratefully at the reassurance. "You're so brave," she says, praise Azura always handles awkwardly. "I can only imagine what you've been through, being away from home for so long."  
  
"Ma'am, I—" Azura tries. _It's been two weeks. I'm twenty-four. I'm not your child. That's not my home._ "I'm not in danger." Not from her kidnapper, anyway… "Sca— Ms. Sykes didn't do anything wrong. She's just a journalist."  
  
Something in Mikoto's face changes. "I see," she says. "Does your arm hurt much? And that cut on your cheek— hold still, I'll heal it."  
  
Healing magic. Of course Mikoto has it— though few do at this point. Her fingers glow blue, and she reaches out and swipes her thumb across the cut on Azura's cheek. Azura winces as the magic stitches it shut, feeling the tingling and burning but unable to move away. Mikoto cleans up the blood from the cut, leaving the cut closed and stable. It'll probably be gone in a week.  
  
"You know I dislike use of force," Mikoto says. "But sadly, it's been more and more necessary nowadays."  
  
Azura rolls her aching shoulder. "You could've told your bodyguard that before she slammed me against the wall."  
  
"Reina's just doing her job," Mikoto chides. "And now I'm doing mine, bringing you home."  
  
Azura's blood runs cold. "What?"  
  
"You've been away from us," Mikoto says. "I've missed you. I'm sure the club has, too."  
  
Azura bristles thinking about the club— about going back to singing for crowds of men she'd never see again, picking the most important one and pulling his secrets out, smoking on her fire escape when he fell asleep to try and distract herself from the feeling of another body on hers. Subconsciously, her hands come to rest on her arms, drawing herself closer against an imaginary touch.  
  
"Suzanoh isn't my home, ma'am," she says. "And I'm not in danger. But I won't go back to Hoshido."  
  
"You act as if you have a choice," Mikoto replies. "Yukimura."  
  
"Yes, ma'am," Yukimura nods in the rearview mirror. It's only now Azura notices that he's driving away from Izumo, leaving the coastline and the city behind. Panic siezes Azura's gut.  
  
"What are you going to do with me?" Azura asks. "What about Ms. Sykes?"  
  
"I heard she was in the hospital," Mikoto tells her. "A stab wound, wasn't it? Considering the secrets she knows, we'll have to get rid of her, unfortunately. I imagine that won't help Hoshido's relationship with Cheve. A shame, really. I'm told Cheve is valuable territory. The Shirasagis could do a lot of good there."  
  
She sighs. Azura can't believe what she's hearing.  
  
"What really happened to the envoy from Cheve?" she finds herself asking.  
  
Mikoto shakes her head. "They were rerouted," she says. "Messy business. But if I'm to run Hoshido, I must do it firmly. We cannot have allies that cannot stand on their own."  
  
"So you'll just run them over?" Azura demands. "Bulldoze them? Turn the place into manufacturing plants and make its people work them?"  
  
"When you put it that way, it sounds so terrible," Mikoto sighs. "But what else would we do? Let Nohr use the territories as leverage against us?"  
  
Azura's lip curls in disgust. "You're killing people," she says. "You're _killing people_ and convincing everybody it's right! You're doing the same thing Nohr does, except you're lying about it!"  
  
The car screeches to a halt fast enough it slams Azura into the back of the front seat. Yukimura curses in Hoshidan. The wheels skid on the slippery road. Azura siezes her chance and shoves open the door, jumping from the car and rolling on the wet asphalt. The rain pours hard enough that there's a mist covering the ground. Azura slams into the barrier separating the road from the hillside.  
  
She pushes herself off the ground, shaking the rainwater from her eyes. Her coat is still in the car. She can't go back for it now.  
  
Yukimura sighs, inspecting the log fallen across the road. While he's distracted, Azura ducks under the barrier and skids down the hill, disappearing into the mist.  
  
In the car, Mikoto sighs. It seems they'll be getting their wayward canary back the hard way.


	8. She of the Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter this time. more plot and details coming soon ;)
> 
> ['man, i feel like a woman-- bass boosted' playing in the distance]

Azura's mouth fills with metal when she hits the bottom of the hill— it's not really the bottom, but something hard has ever so graciously broken her fall. She spits rainwater when she sits up, and feels stickiness on her upper lip and pain in her nose. She rubs at it and that makes it worse, sending jolts of white-hot pain up into her skull. Her hand comes away red. Absolutely fantastic.  
  
She bites back a curse as she wipes the blood off on her skirt. The scars on the back of her hand ache in the cold, out of synch with the one on her arm. That one's been a problem since she got it, and she scowls when she rubs at it. At least the building she crashed into is a little bit of shelter from the heavy rain.  
  
It's hard wood panels with a tin roof— someone's backyard shack, maybe, where they keep gardening tools. She must be in farming country. Just how far is she from Izumo?  
  
Apparently too far to tell right away, even with Azura's sharp eyes, though the rainwater in them doesn't help. It seems the storm doesn't want to subside any time soon— it seems she'll have to wait it out. She could really use a cigarette, but it's not like she can light one up in the middle of the storm, even if she _did_ have one. So much for that.  
  
Azura sighs, pressing her back against the shed. She doesn't like the idea of waiting. Waiting gives Mrs. Shirasagi time to track her down. Waiting makes it harder for her to stay a step ahead. But it's either wait or fight through the storm, so she's stuck.  
  
She's not sure if she dozes or not— she must, because her head nods forward and when she snaps it back, the sky is dark and it's no longer raining. She feels hunger pangs in her gut. Her knees are stiff. Her back aches. She stands up slowly, head ringing, mouth dry. She feels vulnerable without the weight of her coat on her back, but there's no getting it back now.  
  
Carefully, she edges her way out from behind the shack. A fat, dappled kinshi snoozes beneath a lean-to built out of the low house. There's an ancient tire swing dangling from the tree on the property. There's a dirt road winding down the face of the hill, ending at a red gate opening onto the shoulder of the main road. She hears creaking somewhere around the house, smells cooking meat. Azura tries to move quickly but quietly, giving the sleeping kinshi a wide berth, before anyone can notice her lurking.  
  
A dog barking startles her out of it. She curses, stumbles back on the wet grass. The dog runs at her, barking— the kinshi wakes, squawking, and Azura hears heavy footsteps from inside the house. She runs.  
  
Down, down the hill, no mind for the path, stumbling over rocks and fallen branches. The dog barks, the kinshi squawks, and faintly, she hears angry Hoshidan trying to calm them both down. But there's no property owner with a hunting rifle come to shoot her for trespassing, so Azura takes her victory where she can. She slams into the fence hard enough for the chicken wire to cut hexagons into her arm, but there's no time to examine it. She climbs over the gate and her shoes hit the wet dirt shoulder of the road.  
  
A car, headlights blazing, zips by at sixty miles an hour. Dangerous on the wet roads, but it seems some people don't care about that. Azura glances down the road before picking a direction— east, she thinks— and walking.  
  
Walking feels a lot slower when one has been traveling by car and train. The clouds blot out the stars and the moon, leaving Azura to navigate the dark road with what little she can see and touch. The cold night chills her to the bone, even colder after the rain. She shivers, wishing for her coat or, better yet, one of those fluffy towels that Mikoto had in her car.  
  
Halfheartedly, she wonders if this isn't one of their tactics— if they know where she is and they're waiting for her to be desperate enough to take anything to warm up. Brute force really isn't the Shirasagi's style.  
  
The cuts on her arm sting. She kind of wishes her blouse had sleeves— though maybe that wouldn't help all that much. It'd be another layer of wet fabric keeping her colder than she needed to be. As it is, she shivers, trying to breathe warmth into her freezing hands with little effect. Her nose is still bleeding, her bones ache, and the cuts on her arm drip down her elbow. She probably looks like a murder victim.  
  
A car rumbles up the road. Azura squints into the headlights and puts her thumb out. They don't stop— they may, in fact, drive faster. She doesn't really blame them.  
  
She comes to a bridge over a stream that burbles down the mountain. It has old-style red gates on each end, with the green roofing and the spell tags plastered along the sides. There's some kind of information board that Azura can't read in the darkness, and on the other side, an empty booth like a ticket booth. She squints at the board in vain, and then looks into the booth on the off-chance of seeing somebody who might be able to point her towards the city.  
  
Nothing, even when she presses her face to the window. Of course. But she can see little orange lights, like streetlights, from what looks like a town down at the bottom of the hill. It's her best bet, so she jogs down the empty road.  
  
It's quiet— not eerily so, but the kind of quiet that you feel more than you hear. Azura hears the vague tinkling of wind chimes and wooden noisemakers clattering together in the night breeze. There's orange light from the lanterns, the same painted porcelain as the ones in the city— and it makes sense that they're the same, because in the dim orange light, Azura can barely read one of the guide boards.  
  
_Old Izumo,_ the carved top of the board reads. There's more pictures and information about the town, but Azura can't read it. She supposes it's enough to know she's in Old Izumo— especially since that means there might be a train back to the city.  
  
There's nothing. The parking lot is empty, every door shut, every window dark. The entire town sleeps. Great. She's not getting back to the city this late. Now she's cold, aching, hungry, and has nowhere to stay.  
  
But it's not as if she hasn't been cold and hungry before. If she managed two years of it when she was twelve, why wouldn't she be able to now?  
  
There's a pay phone at the tram station, the one that takes tourists from the city to the old town and back. A light flickers on when she steps onto the platform. Informational boards about Old Izumo cover the walls, and there are a few closed shops crammed in a row next to the tour guide booth. While Azura waits for the operator to connect her to New Hope General Hospital, she scans the nearest information board.  
  
There's a scenic image of the big rock in the center of Old Izumo, the one with the charms hanging from it, behind one of the red gates and in front of an impressive mountain. _Old Izumo may be isolated, but that doesn't stop it from being the old spiritual center of Hoshido,_ the board reads. _In the days of the Dragons, people came from far and wide to see Izumo's natural hot springs and find inner peace at the serene mountain shrines._ The rest is too small to read.  
  
The line clicks. _"New Hope General Hospital service desk,"_ a voice says.  
  
Azura coughs. "Excuse me," she says. Her voice sounds hoarse, nasal from the lack of air through her nose. "I need to talk to Scarlet Sykes. It's urgent."  
  
_"It's very late, ma'am, all the patients are asleep right now."_  
  
"It's urgent," Azura insists. "Please, I need to speak with her— she'll understand if you tell her Azura is calling."  
  
The receptionist makes a tutting noise. _"If you're having a medical emergency, please hang up and dial emergency services in your area."_  
  
"It's not a medical emergency," Azura insists. "Please, if you can just— just have someone wake her—"  
  
_"What's the emergency exactly?"_  
  
Azura bites back a curse. "It's news from her family in Cheve, ma'am," she lies. "You see— her grandfather is very ill and frail, and it's this trip alone that's kept her from being at his side. I've just recieved the news that he passed, but her family can't pay for the distance call from Tilmere, so I'm…"  
  
The receptionist hums. _"I see,"_ she says. _"Very well, I'm sure she'll want to hear this. I'll have someone wake her and come to the phone."_  
  
Azura breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank you," she says, though she's not sure if the receptionist hears it.  
  
She's on hold for several minutes, spent tapping her soaked shoe on the concrete or picking blades of grass out of the buttons of her blouse, or examining her cloudy reflection in the metal behind the pay phone. She wipes the blood dripping from her arm off on her hand, then wipes her hand on her skirt. It makes a dark red smear that'll dry an ugly brown— ah, well. It'll match the grass stains. Her eyes are ringed with shiners that make her look like she's just walked out of a boxing match, and that's not even mentioning the swelling of her broken nose. It's stopped bleeding, at least, and the blood's clotting on her lip. Still, she's not a pretty picture.  
  
_"Azura? Azura, what's wrong?"_  
  
Scarlet's voice is a relief to hear. Azura almost wants to cry.  
  
"Scarlet," she murmurs. "I'm sorry to wake you. I know it must be a horrible hour."  
  
_"Never mind that,"_ Scarlet replies. _"Are you alright? I didn't hear from you at all yesterday, so I called the boardinghouse, but the landlord said you weren't there."_  
  
Azura sighs. "It's complicated. Right now I'm in Old Izumo."  
  
_"Old—"_ Scarlet begins. Then she lowers her voice. _"Old Izumo? Why in blazes are you in Old Izumo?"_  
  
Azura bites at her swollen lower lip. "Mrs. Shirasagi found me outside the hospital when I left," she says. "In her car. There was… an altercation. I suppose it counts as a kidnapping? She tried to drive me back to Suzanoh."  
  
_"Gods, really?"_ Scarlet manages. Azura hears the rustling of her hospital gown and assumes Scarlet's running a hand through her hair. Azura can picture it now; mussed and flattened at the back from sleep but still soft and bright and glowing in the sun. The last time she saw it glowing like that was a week and a half previous when Azura had woken up in her arms, and the world felt like it was the two of them and the lumpy bed and the musty quilt, and nothing else mattered.  
  
"I managed to escape because the road was blocked," Azura explains. "Broke my nose rolling down the hill. Ran from a dog. Tried to hitch a ride and failed. Now I'm in Old Izumo."  
  
_"What? Really?"_ Scarlet asks.  
  
"I'll be fine," Azura insists. "And given there's a direct trolley line, I'm probably not that far from the city. I'll walk."  
  
_"Are you sure? I don't want you to get hurt, Azura. You know I worry."_  
  
"You worry too much, for a woman who just got stabbed," Azura replies. "Don't worry about me."  
  
_"Too late for that."_  
  
Azura chuckles lightly. For a second, it feels like everything is alright— like there's no Shirasagis or Von Krakeners or people set out to kill them, like there's no stab wound or broken nose, like they're just a town apart and they'll see each other soon, all because Scarlet's still smiling even in the midst of catastrophe. Azura knows that Scarlet's not cut out for this; she's too soft for a life of running from the police and she'll still admit it herself. Scarlet is a journalist, one who swears upon the truth and swears to bring it to the people because that's what they deserve. Words are her weapon, not artillery, not drugs, not money, not seduction and trickery. She deals in words and she keeps herself strong with a smile, thinking of her family, feeding coffee cake to pigeons, trusting that the next day the sun will rise and the pain will ease. Scarlet is a woman who looks at Azura and sees someone worth protecting because it's what she sees in the world. There are things in the world worth fighting for— that's what she told Azura what feels like an age ago and it's what has burned itself into Azura's heart since then: that _she_ is worth fighting for.  
  
It's then that Azura falls in love. She just doesn't know it yet.  
  
"I'll be home before you know it," she says, and she doesn't even notice how she says home like someone who's used to having one. "Oh, and Scarlet— I told the receptionist that I'm calling to tell you your grandfather's dead, so you'll have to make up a believable reaction when she tells you she's sorry for your loss."  
  
Scarlet sighs. _"I understand,"_ she says. _"I'll see you soon, then?"_  
  
"I promise," Azura says. With that she hangs up the reciever with a heavy clunk. She smiles, and doesn't even realize.  
  
With that out of the way, Azura looks down the train tracks. If she squints, she can barely see the lights of Izumo in the distance… though it's a very long way. She'd better rest for the night and see about hitching a ride in the morning.  
  
She pokes around a bit. Off the platform, hidden in the trees along the tram line, there's a crumbling statue inside a little shrine. The information board says it's one of fourteen on the Old Izumo grounds, and the final clue of some treasure hunt for kids. The area behind it is well-hidden, though, so that's where Azura rests for the night. She falls asleep thinking of what she wouldn't give to be back in the city— back in the bed in the boarding house or the couch in the hospital waiting room or anywhere where Scarlet isn't hours away.  
  
The crash of a gong catapults her out of sleep. She's up in a flash, eyes wide, heart pounding until she realizes where she is. She shudders, setting a hand over her heart. That wasn't good for her blood pressure.  
  
Azura bends her stiff knees, cracking the joints in her back. She stands, knocking the dirt and leaves from her clothes. Her empty stomach sends jolts of pain through her torso when she tries to move. Her head pounds. For a moment she thinks back to the sandwich that Benny gave her, and how tasty it'd be. It's too bad it's in her coat. She mourns for the breakfast that could be and then snaps herself out of it. She's been hungry before for far longer than a day— it won't kill her now, especially if she gets back to the city unscathed.  
  
It's just after sunrise. The gong goes again. She creeps out from behind the shrine and brushes the dirt off her clothes, trying in vain to at least make herself look a little presentable. She knows she's not, considering her nose more closely resembles a cherry jawbreaker than a nose, but she can try, can't she?  
  
She looks around— there's a gathering of people in red and white around the big rock, but they're too far away to notice her sprinting to the pay phone across the train station unless they're looking. When she reaches it, she fumbles inside her shirt for the little piece of paper that Ash slipped her "just in case."  
  
The ink is runny and the paper is warped, but it's readable. The name above the number reads _Ika village, Yamaji._ Azura rehearses the name in her head while she's waiting for the operator to connect her.  
  
Someone picks up with a clunk. _"Hello?"_ a little voice asks— a young girl, probably not much older than thirteen. _"Who's callin', please?"_  
  
Azura clears her throat. "I'm calling for Ash or Silver Wyrmsbane. Tell them it's Azura."  
  
_"Mm-hmm,"_ the girl replies. Then she turns away from the phone. Azura hears her muffled calling to 'Ms. Wyrmsbane,' then some plasticy shuffling when she hands over the phone.  
  
_"So you kept the number, huh?"_ Ash says, and Azura knows it's Ash because Ash's voice is deeper, more boistrous. _"Aw, 'Zura, you flatter me."_  
  
"Only if it'll help my case," Azura replies. "So, Ash, remember last Gourd Festival in Suzanoh, and how I didn't tell Mrs. Shirasagi who was behind the Running of the Pumpkins? I'm calling in a favor."  
  
Ash sighs. _"I knew this day would come. What do you need?"_  
  
"A ride back into Izumo," Azura says. "I'm in Old Izumo right now. Long story short is your mother tried to kidnap me."  
  
_"Fuckin' politics,"_ Ash sighs. _"All this kidnapping and nonsense. I'll be over in a jiffy."_  
  
"In the car?" Azura asks, hopefully.  
  
Ash cackles— of course not. _"Aw, 'Zura, when have I ever picked you up in a car when there's a far better option?"_  
  
Ash hangs up the phone with a heavy clunk. In the next ten seconds, clouds start darkening and broiling together on the horizon. Azura guesses she'll be here in five minutes or less.  
  
It's four and a half, and by that point the rain is pouring, thunder is rumbling loud as a hungry dragon's stomach, and lightning flashes and crashes in the hills. The people of Old Izumo have fled inside, and Azura's in the parking lot, waiting for her ride.  
  
Lighnting arcs, striking a crater into the parking lot. Azura shuts her eyes agains the blinding light, but otherwise doesn't flinch. When the thunder fades, she hears a roar that fades to a whoop. Ash has always had a flair for the dramatic.  
  
When Azura blinks the spots from her eyes, a dark gray dragon stands in the blackened crater of the parking lot, roaring and rearing on its hind legs. It couldn't be anyone but Ash.  
  
"Do you have to do that _every_ time?" Azura shouts over the storm.  
  
"Wouldn't be any fun if I didn't," Ash replies. "Get on! I'm feelin' like a woman today!"  
  
Azura rolls her eyes and climbs on to Ash's back. Like lightning, Ash is off again— arcing through the storm, jumping off the hills like an oversized mountain goat. The storm follows as she does, and thus is where she draws her power. Azura clings to her neck, eyes shut tight against the storm, trying to ignore the feeling of her face peeling back.  
  
It is, at least, a fast way back to the city.


	9. Return

Ash turns back to human form in the middle of an empty field, cracking her neck and whipping the hood of her raincoat over her head. The storm rages on, and Ash tilts her head back to watch the dark clouds swirl. Azura shivers.  
  
"There's a bus stop near here," Ash tells her. "I'll go with you back to the hospital."  
  
"I can't ask you to do that," Azura replies.  
  
"You don't have to, because I'm doing it anyway," Ash shrugs, pulling a yellow raincoat from one of her pockets and putting it over Azura's shoulders. It's another layer of protection from the rain and cold, and it's dry— unlike Azura. She rubs her hands together and then shoves them deep in the coat's pockets.  
  
Azura starts walking. "I guess I can't stop you," she admits. "How are you going to get home?"  
  
Ash's galoshes squish in the mud of the field. "I'll manage. It wasn’t like I was just going to leave you out here, you know? Especially since Sil is out on another errand.” Azura almost asks what errand that might be, but figures it’s just grocery shopping or something. Even if the twins are independent agents vital to the success of both Hoshido and Nohr, they still needed to eat.  
  
They walk in silence as the storm goes, though it'll fade like a normal storm now that Ash isn't controlling it. By the time they reach the bus stop, it's faded to a drizzle. Ash puts her hood back and catches raindrops in her mouth.  
  
"You don't know what's in that rain," Azura warns. "You could get some horrible disease from eating toxic waste."  
  
"I wasn't aware you were my mother now," Ash replies, eating another raindrop.  
  
"I should _hope_ I'm not your mother," Azura says, with more snark than is perhaps necssary. "I haven't kidnapped enough people for that."  
  
More silence passes while they wait for the bus. Ash taps her foot to some imaginary beat, her galoshes splashing in the puddle formed in the weather-beaten road. Azura hasn't danced for herself in years— she wonders if the twins still do.  
  
"Have I told you I'm pregnant?" Azura asks.  
  
Ash looks at her in surprise. "You didn't mention that," she says. "How far along? And who's the— never mind."  
  
Azura shrugs, looking at her stomach— still flat, and it hurts when she prods it. It's hard to believe that there's a bundle of cells in there. It doesn't even have a heart or a brain or eyes. How crazy is that?  
  
"A month, month and a half, maybe," Azura shrugs. "I haven't had the chance to see any doctors."  
  
Ash sighs. "Everyone I know is having babies. First Sil, now you? I can't be an auntie to all these little gremlins at once!"  
  
"Sil is having a kid?" Azura's eyebrows shoot up. This is news to her.  
  
"He and Silas are discussing it," Ash replies. "I mean, might as well, right? Especially since nobody's out for our blood, at least not that I know of. I suppose it's a little more complicated with you."  
  
Azura sighs. "You can say that again."  
  
"You know, Felicia's brought it up," Ash says. "I'm kind of hesitant. We're still only twenty-two, you know, so where's the rush? And what if the kid turns out to be the next savior of the continent or something? I couldn't handle that kind of competition."

"Your modesty, as always, astounds me."  
  
Ash snorts. The rest of the time passes in yet more silence. Ash sets and bandages Azura's broken nose with a first-aid kit tucked in the pocket of her raincoat. It aches, throbbing with the beat of her heart and hurting more every time it does. She'll have to go to a doctor eventually, though she's not sure when that'll end up being. Though she supposes she's put it off for long enough.  
  
When the bus comes, Ash pays the fare and steps back. Azura waves goodbye from the window of the empty bus, curling up in one of the back seats and resting her head on the bus wall. She's stopped feeling hunger pangs every time she moves, but she'll be glad when she can eat again, and take a shower, and rest in a real bed. And see Scarlet, of course— she won't try to pretend she's not looking forward to it.  
  
Azura idly daydreams as the bus rumbles along the country roads on its daily route. Scarlet's due to leave the hospital today, so perhaps she'd be back at the boardinghouse by the time the bus reached the bus station in the city. Or maybe Azura would get back in time for Scarlet to just be leaving the hospital, and they'd reunite there. She'd be glad to see Azura, certainly, after everything— Azura's tired mind, for once, didn't even entertain the possibility of the opposite. She'd be standing on her own two feet again, the stab in her side merely a scar and an ache that'd fade with time. Maybe the sun would do the thing where it lights up her hair and turns it gold, and she'd look like the closest thing to an angel that Azura could imagine.  
  
Azura pulls her borrowed raincoat closer, imagining Scarlet turning to her and holding her close. Her arms would be so warm around Azura's form, still chilled to the bone. Azura would rest her head on Scarlet's shoulder and let the embrace warm her to her core. She wouldn't feel cold or hungry or tired anymore— everything would feel like it'd be okay, it'd be okay just because Scarlet was there and they'd face it together. And in the moment Azura would soak in it, the words  _I_ _love you_ at the tip of her tongue but left unsaid. (Maybe in another fantasy, where she'd say it and Scarlet would say it back.)  
  
Azura doesn't even notice the tears on her cheeks until she notices them dripping onto her raincoat. She quickly hides her face and rubs them away before anyone else can notice.  
  
It's midafternoon when the bus parks in the Izumo bus station. Azura gets off with the rest of the folks headed into the city, melding in with the crowd effortlessly— it's what she does. It's not raining in the city, but she'll have to find her way and walk back to the hospital. But it could still be worse. She could be curled up on a cold, damp hillside, nursing a broken nose and an empty stomach, exhausted and aching and generally not having a good time.  
  
She's always been good with city geographies, though. Asking locals for directions yields good results, and soon she can see the familiar front of the boardinghouse— the crumbling brick, the crooked shutters, the _ROOMS 4 RENT_ sign in the front window, the bicycles chained to the wrought-iron fencing blocking off the basement entrance. She's running before she knows it, sprinting up the set of steps to the front door, feeling the splintering paint beneath her cold fingers.  
  
The bell rings when she enters. It's quiet. The landlord isn't at the desk, and the sign says _GONE 4 GROCERIES. BACK 5PM. RYUJI._ One of the elderly tenants knits socks on one of the sofas in the parlor while her husband smokes a pipe by the open window. They don't even glance her way as she wipes her feet on the mat and makes her way to the tiny room that she and Scarlet share, the room that's held them for the past month.  
  
Scarlet's not there when she enters. But the room is the same as when she left it— Scarlet's daywear draped over the rickety chair, her washed underthings hanging from a line, her library books on the chest of drawers with her pencils and her scratched-out notes. Azura's small collection of cosmetics sharing space on the chest of drawers below the cracked mirror. The bottle of wine by the bedside table. The paper bag of non-perishables, set down on the concrete floor. The room is not a home by any means, but it's the closest to one Azura thinks she's ever known, even if it's only temporary. Even if it's only a home when Scarlet's in it.  
  
She hears the front door jingle while she's in her reverie and snaps out of it. Heavy footsteps come towards her room, and until it opens, Azura doesn't dare hope Scarlet has come home.  
  
But it opens, and there she is, dressed and standing and there. And it is all Azura can do to not hurl herself at Scarlet right then and there.  
  
Scarlet licks her dry lips. "Azura," she manages.  
  
Azura cracks a smile, though she can feel tears forming in her eyes again. "Hey," she says.  
  
"Hey yourself," Scarlet replies. "So, ah… how was Suzanoh?"  
  
"Never got there," Azura shrugs.  
  
Scarlet nods. "That's for the best," she says. "What happened to your nose?"  
  
"Ran into a shed," Azura says. "I'll be okay."  
  
"I'm glad," Scarlet says. She swallows. She hangs her leather jacket on the peg in the wall, mindful of her hurt side. Then she steps a little closer to Azura and pushes her hair out of her face. In response, Azura shoves aside all the façade she's carefully cultivated for ten-some years and throws herself at Scarlet, burying her face in Scarlet's shoulder and breathing in her scent, soaking in her warmth. She's so warm, and when her arms come down around Azura's shivering form, it feels far, far better than her fantasy.  
  
They don't speak very much after that.  
  


* * *

  
  
Predictably, Azura feels much better after dinner, and after a hot shower. Scarlet helps her patch up the cuts on her arm and redo the dressing on her nose, and doesn't seem content to leave her alone— though that's fair, after what happened last time. Azura doesn't want to be alone, either.  
  
Nighttime has settled over Izumo. Azura’s wrapped in Scarlet’s arms and in the musty-smelling quilt. It’s soft and welcoming, far more welcoming than the ground, at least— though it’s hard to manage being harder than the ground. She sleeps, breathing through her mouth because her nose is still swollen, and Scarlet shifts a little, pulling a strand of hair from her mouth.  
  
Scarlet feels a little smile lingering on her features. It’s good to have Azura back— good to know she’s safe and nothing will take her away, not as long as Scarlet’s there. And Azura clings to her like she never wants to leave, like she’s spent all her life watching things leave her and she’s determined not to let her slip away. But Scarlet would never leave her, never in her life. Never if it was up to her.  
  
(Someday she’ll swear this to Azura while they’re both awake. That day has not yet come.)  
  
But it weighs heavily on her mind that the Shirasagis tried to kidnap Azura— she was still too valuable to kill, but Scarlet doubted governments like Hoshido’s didn’t take prisoners unless there was some valuable reason to keep them alive and contained.  
  
Scarlet bets that’s why Azura works so closely with the twins. The difference between them is that the twins had the raw power to break free of wherever they were held— meanwhile Azura can get shuttled around, locked up wherever it suited, like some kind of weapon. She can’t turn into a dragon and she doesn’t have any other particular superhuman gift. What power does she have?  
  
It makes Scarlet’s lip curl. She’s never really felt that much vitriol towards a corporation before— sure, they do some less-than-savory things, but that’s what corporations do, right? Do things that aren’t necessarily great? She’s been told her whole life that people are good at their core and will generally try to do what they feel is right. And she still kind of believes it, but it’s hard to think about somebody choosing to do the things that Hoshido and Nohr are doing while fully convinced it’s right. It feels like childhood-held dreams and thoughts are clashing with new knowledge, and it makes her feel kind of queasy.  
  
From what Azura’s told her, Mikoto Shirasagi thinks she’s doing the right thing. And Scarlet isn’t quite sure how she thinks this— but why should she care? What she’s doing is wrong and will get a lot of people killed if Scarlet doesn’t do something. Maybe if she takes her story to Hoshido’s government, they’ll find some loophole to shut down the corporation. Maybe… maybe…  
  
Maybe nothing. Scarlet sighs and Azura’s ear twitches. She’s a light sleeper— Scarlet had better be careful not to wake her.  
  
Her mind goes back to earlier in the day. Silver had visited her right after her discharge from the hospital, and given her a little journal that he’d claimed was full of information about Hoshido’s inner workings that’d be vital to her. _A firsthand account of Shirasagi Pharmaceuticals,_ he’d said. _As told by me and Ash, when we had an all-access pass to the inside of the Wall._  
  
The Wall— an ominous name. According to Silver, that was the Shirasagis’ private research facility. Somehow Scarlet felt it was more than that.  
  
The Wall. The Kingsmen. Dragonvein. Mikoto Shirasagi. Azura. The twins. Scarlet’s mystery assailant. Krakener Arms. Names and players and items float around Scarlet’s head. She can’t hope to sleep, even with Azura in her arms. So she moves slowly, carefully, and tucks the quilt up to Azura’s chin when she leaves the bed. She pads over to her leather jacket, reaching in the pockets for her notebook. The damned jacket is still bloodstained from the stab wound, but there’s no getting that stain out now.  
  
She reaches for the front-left pocket, where she usually keeps it. Strangely, there’s nothing— odd. Maybe it’s in another pocket. Or another? She goes through every damned pocket the jacket has, including a few she hadn’t known about, and comes up with nothing.  
  
She thinks back. Where was her notebook last? It was with her while she worked on her piece, in her pocket in the diner where she and Azura met Digits, but after that…  
  
Scarlet felt a cold hand run up her spine and grip the back of her head. Maybe she hadn’t been stabbed for no reason, after all.


	10. Windmire, 1923

It's the fall. Azura's young— six, to be exact. Nohr is new to her, all big smokestacks and tall buildings where she's used to salt water and orchids growing on the sides of the roads. She's started first grade at a school where she has to wear stiff shoes and crisp shirts and purple plaid skirts, sit in rows and answer questions by standing up and saying the answer to a room full of students that stare first at the color of her sun-kissed skin and then at the blue of her long hair in its crooked braids and then at the shaking of her tiny hands, clutching her too-big skirt because she's scared to get it wrong. The air is strange and makes her eyes sting, and when she walks home she has to alternate between hitching up her skirt and rubbing her eyes.  
  
It hurts to be six and visibly foreign in Nohr. Everyone speaks so quickly and sharply in tones Azura's not used to, and they look at her like she's strange or stupid when she doesn't get it. Strange looks give way to glaring and teasing and teasing gives way to pushing, jostling, jeering, taunting, and what Azura learns is that perhaps if she weren't strange then maybe they wouldn't do that.   
  
She has step-siblings, now that her mother married Mr. von Krakener, step-siblings who are tall and gray-eyed with sharp cheekbones and pointed chins and jawlines that look cut from stone. One's in junior high school and another is still a toddler, and one is nine to Azura's six but she has her own friends and although she glances at Azura out of the corner of her eye when they leave the building, she says nothing.   
  
Azura doesn't expect her to say anything. Why would she? So Azura just keeps her head down and walks back to the estate with a hand on her too-big waistband, and blocks out the noises of school with old songs that sound like home.  
  
She doesn't have a house key of her own, but Camilla does, so she sits on the bench on the porch until Camilla says goodbye to the friends she walks with at the corner and waits for Camilla to unlock the door— it's always at exactly three-thirty. She knows better than to glance at Azura, and Azura always skirts in just behind her when she gets home. Camilla kicks her saddle shoes aside with a careless clatter and Azura tucks hers carefully into the corner between the house plant and the wall.  
  
The manor feels cold and inhospitable to Azura despite the warm tone of the dark polished wood. She thinks it's the cabinets full of antiques and the old weaponry lining the walls alongside portraits of important von Krakeners, all of them glaring down at her as if she's committed some crime against Nohr by existing in their hallways. When she first arrived she thumped at the wall below one of them with her tiny sock foot out of spite, and gotten scolded by the maid (a pale-eyed, snippy little woman named Anita that sneers with her eyes everywhere she looks and acts like she's above working as a maid because Mr. von Krakener promised she'd be promoted if she did well) because she shouldn't make noise. So Azura didn't thump anymore walls, but she did once stare at one particularly cold-gazed painting and make a face when nobody was watching.  
  
She has a routine at this point. She sets her faded school bag by her shoes as far out of the way as possible, then slips silently down the hardwood halls and into the downstairs bathroom. She can hear Camilla, having changed out of her uniform, thump down the stairs and down the hallway towards the kitchen, where the cook's set out apple slices and glasses of lemonade for Xander and Camilla to have as after-school snacks. If Azura were bolder, she'd sneak one of them, but they'd notice, so she didn't. Instead she shuts the bathroom door tight and stands on the commode lid to reach the medicine cabinet, and gets out a box of band-aids for the scrapes on her elbows and knees.  
  
She washes the stinging scrapes on her hands first. She's not very good at sticking them on yet, but each scrape gets two in an x-shape to cover it all. Then she sticks band-aids on the worst parts on her hands. She's already picked the gravel out of her skin, so nobody will notice she was there by playground substrate on the bathroom floor. Azura is very good at making it so nobody will have known she was even there.  
  
With her scrapes washed and bandaged, Azura takes her bag full of homework upstairs, to the big, mostly-empty bedroom that still smells like that closed-off dustiness that rooms get if they're cleaned but rarely opened. She changes into another hand-me-down dress that Camilla must've rejected because it's too yellow and floral for her tastes and puts her worksheets on the big heavy desk in the corner.   
  
The clock on the wall ticks silently while she does her homework— subtraction and underlining words that rhyme and tracing letters in the workbook. When it chimes four, she hears Xander slam the front door shut and announce that he's home. Xander always gets home at four sharp, except on Tuesdays and Fridays, when he has rugby practice. Azura only counts the hour because she knows that in exactly fifteen minutes, her mother will come home from her day out in the city, and Azura will have until exactly six-thirty to spend time with her mother. It's the only part of the day that Azura looks forward to, but it's worth it. (Azura is very good at remembering numbers.)  
  
At four-ten, Azura pads down the stairs and waits by the front door. She clutches her library book to her chest— a blue volume with a rabbit and a frog wearing jackets and ties on the cover. It's called _Escape from Wyvern Mountain_ and the librarian told her it was for fourth grade and up when she checked it out, but Azura's sure she can handle it. She likes a challenge, and if she gets stuck, she'll ask her mother.  
  
Four-fifteen comes and goes. Her mother is late.  
  
Azura sighs. She waits until four-thirty, because sometimes she's just a little bit late, but four-thirty comes and goes, too. Still, she waits, waits while little Leo, barely sparing her a glance, toddles down the stairs with both feet on each step trying to escape from the maid that wants to put him down for his nap, while Xander whacks the radio trying to get a clearer signal for this week's episode of the highly fictionalized _Knights Versus Samurai_ story program that comes on at five, while Camilla smuggles fashion magazines up to her room in her blouse, while the minutes slip by until it's six-thirty and Azura's woken up from dozing on the stairs by the ringing of the dinner bell.  
  
She's not really hungry, but missing dinner to wait by the door means she won’t get anything to eat, so she reluctantly puts her book away in her backpack and hurries into the dining room just before Anita the maid shuts the door.  
  
The dining room is quiet. The head chair at the dining table is empty and so is the chair immediately to the right. To the left, though, is Xander, scratching at his pimples with one hand and holding the gravy boat with the other. Across him is Camilla, who didn’t even bother looking up when Azura slipped into the room, and to Xander’s left is Leo in a high chair with his two meaty toddler hands clutching two different things in a vice grip— one his fork, holding it like a trophy, and the other crushing his broccoli into submission as if squishing it will make it a more appetizing vegetable. Azura slips in at the place setting next to Camilla, scooting herself closer to the chair and, face burning, staring at her dinner.   
  
The silence is palatable and awkward. Azura doesn’t dare start— she learned quickly that starting before everyone else is very rude, even though it never mattered back in Valla. So many things matter in Nohr that Azura couldn’t have fathomed a year previous. How quickly she can read, for one. How good she is at sports, for another. How many digits she can add and subtract without using her fingers. How many historical figures she can list. How many dates she can remember. How many types of rocks she can list. How fast she can say yes ma’am and yes sir and how straight she can stand up when asked a question. Nohr is a series of boxes and arrays where she needs to fit in and fall in line, and Azura doesn’t like it one bit.  
  
Xander clears his throat. “So, since we’re all here, I believe that means we can begin,” he says. “Should I say—“  
  
“Bockly,” Leo announces, holding up his fistful of broccoli.  
  
“Indeed it is, Leo,” Xander says, obviously being a good sport about it. He has at least twice the helpings of everyone else, and starts drowning his plate in gravy while Leo drops his fork and pushes all his broccoli into one hand.  
  
“Eat it, don’t play with it,” Camilla scolds. Anita intervenes, trying to wrestle the broccoli from Leo’s hand as gently as she can while her eyes curse the gods themselves for placing her in this position. Leo whines, and in an impressive display of motor skills, throws the fistful of crushed broccoli across the table, where it lands squarely in Azura’s mashed potatoes.  
  
Azura stiffens, feeling the eyes of the dining room on her.  
  
Camilla sighs. “Leo, that’s rude,” she says. “Missy’s not going to eat your mashed-up broccoli.”  
  
 _My name still isn’t Missy,_ Azura wants to say, and doesn’t. She’s pretty sure that either nobody heard her when she said her name when she met them all, or nobody cares enough to pronounce Azura correctly. She gently scoops the broccoli out of her potatoes and sets it on the side of her plate.  
  
“Don’t want any bockly,” Leo protests. “Don’t wanna!” He scrunches his face up, threatening to throw a tantrum. Anita, though glowering, avoids the crisis by scooping all of Leo’s broccoli onto a napkin and leaving to throw it away. The meltdown averted, Leo picks up his fork and starts stabbing his mashed potatoes.  
  
Camilla rolls her eyes above her milk glass. Xander, again, clears his throat.  
  
“How long do you think father’s business dinner is going to go?” he asks Camilla. Azura ducks her head and busies herself cutting up her piece of chicken so they won’t think she’s listening in.  
  
Camilla shrugs. “Dunno,” she says, with all the bored disinterest of a wealthy nine-year-old.  
  
So that’s where her mother is. She must’ve been Mr. von Krakener’s date to the dinner. Azura wishes she’d known— then she wouldn’t have wasted her time waiting on the stairs.  
  
“That’s not very helpful,” Xander says. “Aren’t you a little curious?”  
  
“It’s just a boring dinner,” Camilla says. “They’re always only back after bedtime, so who cares? Unless you want to join father and his friends for their brandy and boring games.”  
  
“Board games aren’t boring, they’re civilized,” Xander protests.  
  
Camilla smirks. “Careful, Xander,” she teases. “Next you know, you’ll be wearing bowler hats and driving gloves when you ride your bicycle to school.”  
  
“Camilla,” Xander complains.  
  
“Just watch,” Camilla continues. “You’ll have patches on the elbows of all your jackets, and smoke a pipe, and say things like excelsior when you get your report cards. The next book report you do will be criticizing the book you had to read because it’s too modern for your sensibilities. You’ll buy playing cards instead of baseball cards, and keep your existing baseball cards in special card sleeves for when you sell them to an antiques dealer in ten years, except you won’t even do anything with the chewing gum because it’s bad for your fillings.”  
  
Xander rolls his eyes. “You think you’re so funny,” he mutters.   
  
“I _know_ I am,” Camilla replies, with a toss of her lavender hair over her shoulder.  
  
Azura tunes out the rest of their conversation— Amusing though it may be, listening to Xander and Camilla talk feels more like looking in a window than anything else. She finishes dinner quickly and waits until Anita takes Leo from his high chair to put him to bed to slip out of the dining room. If Xander or Camilla notice her absence, they say nothing.  
  
The sun’s just finished setting. Azura changes into her nightgown (another one of Camilla’s rejects), brushes her teeth, and combs out her hair in preparation for bedtime. She reads her library book by the light of the lamp at her bedside until she hears a the noise of the front door. It’s nine-forty-eight. She should definitely be asleep, but…   
  
Silently, she pads to the bedroom door. She knows how to open it without any sound at this point, and she’s pleased when she manages without a single misstep. She avoids the creaky floorboards in the upstairs hallway like a sneaking expert, but when she gets within view of the stairway, she stops.  
  
If she crouches in the shadow by the wall, she can see them— Mr. von Krakener and his friends, and her mother. She’s a head shorter than all of them, a spot of pale blue and dark red among black suits. Her lipstick matches the red of her dinner gown, poking out from beneath her dark gray coat. Azura’s too young to tell that the smile on her painted lips is false, because Azura’s at the age where anything her mother does is beautiful.   
  
It’s too much to hope that her mother’s noticed her up there, but she lingers anyway. They exchange words about the business dinner and investments and things, and von Krakener’s arm rests around her mother’s waist because Azura’s come to learn that’s what people who are married do. Her hand comes to rest on the breast of his coat. Von Krakener has a big laugh, a rowdy laugh that he uses when something amuses him, but he knows better than to use it here because it’d wake his children. Azura doesn’t think he’s a bad man, but he doesn’t seem to know what to do with her.  
  
She knows he’ll never be her father, though. Her father was quiet and soft-spoken, but warm in presence. Mr. von Krakener is broad, a man who knows the space he takes up and believes he’s earned every inch. Azura clung to her mother’s leg when she met him, and he chuckled and said she’d look just like her beautiful mother one day. That was what he’d said, _beautiful_ , as if it were the peak of achievement anything could attain. Von Krakener seems to measure value in things that bring him pleasure— bring it in beauty, amusement, or use. Azura’s mother, his wife, is beauty. And it seems he thinks Azura will be, someday; beautiful, like her mother. Azura can live with that. Her mother is very beautiful, after all.  
  
The group moves to the billiards room. Silently, Azura follows.  
  
Mr. von Krakener’s billiards room is in the front of the house, just off the living room. It smells of brandy and pipe smoke and bad choices, and whenever von Krakener has his friends over, Azura always feels her stomach turn. They have the phonograph playing, jazz mingled with the sounds of the dartboard. Someone throws a dart and the solid thunk of it makes Azura, pressed against an antiques cabinet on the far wall of the living room outside the billiards room door, wince. Everyone, at least von Krakener’s men, chuckle and clink their glasses of brandy. Azura can smell the alcoholic reek from the cabinet.  
  
“Why, Iago,” von Krakener says jovially. “I daresay you’ve improved since last we played!”  
  
Azura hears the snakelike chuckle of one of von Krakener’s men— Iago Baines, the greasy one that nobody seems to like except performatively. Her tiny hands clutch the cabinet tighter. “All I can do to hold a candle to you, Garon,” he says with cloying friendliness. “Still seems I can’t beat Grumman, though.”  
  
“Seems it’s been a good day for you,” von Krakener says. “First, a breakthrough on the usability of Black King— then you beat my darts score!”  
  
Azura hears a guffaw from von Krakener’s other friend that makes her press herself further against the wall, like the laugh itself is a weapon— a big, cocky weapon that throws its weight around like one of the many kids that likes to shove Azura on the playground, except far bigger and far scarier. Like someone had taken one of the worst of them and stuck them in a room with nothing but the same meanness reflected back for years until he grew into a man who lived and died by taking enjoyment from cruelty— a man named Hans Fleischer.  
  
“Bah!” Fleischer scoffs. “Beginner’s luck.”  
  
“Don’t count me out because you can’t find a way to cheat at darts, Hans,” Baines replies.  
  
“I don’t think he’s cheating,” von Krakener comments. “Cheating requires finesse.”  
  
Fleischer grumbles, too indistinct for even Azura’s keen ears to pick up. She hears the clinking of glassware, probably because Fleischer’s grabbed the bottle of brandy and poured himself another glass. Offhandedly, Azura wonders why they play darts. Drinking and throwing tiny sharpened objects at a board don’t strike her as being things that’d mix.  
  
“Don’t let it go to yer head, Weasel,” Fleischer says. “Who’s the one who trains all ‘em Black King candidates? I do.”  
  
“You wouldn’t have anyone to train if we hadn’t figured out the limitations,” Baines replies cooly.   
  
“Gentlemen,” von Krakener interrupts. “Why argue? Tonight is a night of celebration! In fact, I think it calls for more champagne.”  
  
Von Krakener takes a bottle and pops a cork. Azura flinches, but the others just laugh and clap while the champagne bottle fizzes. Clearly they’re very happy about something, probably something to do with Black King.  
  
“Garon, you dog,” Fleischer snorts. “Always looking for an excuse to crack open a bottle, eh?”  
  
“You make me sound like a lush,” von Krakener replies. “Am I not allowed to celebrate a breakthrough with my three closest friends and my wife?”  
  
Three friends? Azura had seen three, but only two had spoken. As if on cue, a third voice speaks up.  
  
“No champagne for me, Garon,” he says, sounding tired. Azura has never met him— she’s never met any of them, and why would they ever bother meeting her— but she knows of him like she knows of the rest. This is the one she knows least about, but she knows his name is Gunter Grumman, and Xander, at least, speaks fondly of him. The rest is a mystery. “I still have to drive home.”  
  
“And the voice of responsibility speaks,” von Krakener comments. “No wonder you’re winning...”  
  
A hand settles on her shoulder. Azura flinches, nearly flinging herself across the hall. Instead she manages to whip her head around and flatten herself against the cabinet.  
  
It’s only Xander. _Only Xander,_ she tells herself. Xander may be tall and awkward and hasn’t yet gotten used to how big he is, but he’s never once made a move to hurt Azura. He’s standing there in his purple dressing gown and striped pajama pants and soft slippers, looming over Azura in the dim light of the hallway, brow furrowed and curly hair flattened on one side like he lost a fight with his pillow.   
  
“Missy?” he asks, frowning. “What are you doing here?”  
  
Azura freezes up. She fumbles for some believable lie. I can’t find the bathroom or I’m looking for a drink of water won’t work because she knows the house by now and Xander knows that. I wanted my mother sounds pathetic, like she’s a baby who can’t go to sleep without a goodnight kiss, even if it’s the truth.   
  
“You should go back to bed,” Xander urges. Azura looks at him. He glances to the side. “Me? I heard some noise and thought I’d investigate. I suppose it was just father getting home, so…”  
  
More shuffling from the billiards room. The door creaks open. Azura freezes in place while von Krakener opens the door, poking his head out.  
  
“Oh, Xander,” he says, with only mild surprise. “It’s very late. You ought to be in bed. And…” His eyes shift to Azura. Azura looks down.  
  
“Missy couldn’t sleep,” Xander lies. “I was looking for Mrs. Arete.”  
  
Mr. von Krakener buys it. “Of course, of course,” he says. He goes back into the billiards room— says “Arete, my darling, your daughter is outside.”  
  
“I’ll take care of things, then,” Azura’s mother replies. Her voice is a soothing balm, her accent, thicker than Azura’s own, a welcoming break from the harsh sounds of Nohrian voices. Xander nods to Azura, and Azura peers through her bangs and mouths a thank you.  
  
Arete emerges from the billiards room the next second, smiles politely at Xander and then steps aside so he can join his father in the billiards room— walking in like he belongs there, like he’s already a man despite being barely thirteen. Arete crouches before Azura, gives her a soft smile that Azura missed so.  
  
She smooths down Azura’s tangled hair, painted nails tucking a strand behind Azura’s ear. “It’s awfully late for you to be up, little one,” she says softly.  
  
For the first time today, Azura makes her voice audible. “I can’t sleep, mama,” she whispers.  
  
“Well, it seems we’ll have to fix that,” Arete replies, taking Azura into her arms, lifting her without, it seems to Azura, much effort. Azura tucks her arms around her mother’s neck, lets herself be cradled like they still live in Valla and nothing’s changed.   
  
Arete hums quietly while she tucks Azura back into bed, back under the quilts that somehow seem much warmer when it’s her mother’s hands that straighten them. She examines the band-aids on Azura’s hands and elbows, and asks where Azura got them while she’s sitting on the bed with Azura. She’s beautiful in dark red that matches her lipstick and her nails, crimson complementing the sun-kissed bronze of her skin and the powdery blue of her hair. It’s pinned up into an elaborate braided knot, two long strands dangling down past her face. Azura’s used to seeing it loose or braided in one simple plait, resting over her shoulder. It still smells of sea breeze and magnolia.   
  
“I fell,” Azura lies. She doesn’t tell her mother that she had help falling.  
  
Arete hums. “Try to be careful, then,” she says. “I can’t have you coming home all scratched up.”  
  
Azura nods. Arete smooths out the covers while Azura rests her head on her mother’s leg. Arete holds her in gentle hands Azura misses. She feels selfish, wanting things to go back to how they were in Valla, when it was her and her mother and her father and the mangrove trees and magnolia blossoms, houses painted in cheery colors and bicycles chained to every railing, roofs of scalloped tile in terra cotta and deep blue, white beaches Azura toddled across on her bare little feet, palms that swayed in the ocean breeze, lighthouses painted with designs so intricate it looked like magic.  
  
“I miss home,” she mumbles, while her mother’s hand rubs her shoulder in a rhythm meant to soothe Azura to sleep. “I miss papa.”  
  
Arete’s quiet, save for the sound of her breathing. “I miss him too, little one,” she murmurs.   
  
“I don’t like Nohr,” Azura whispers, feeling tears sting her eyes. “It’s cold and smoky and everyone feels so different. Nobody wants us here. I wanna go home.”  
  
Her mother presses a quiet kiss to her head. “We can’t go home,” she says. “Home is gone. There’s nothing for us left.”  
  
It’s chilling, even to Azura at six. She pulls herself tighter, scoots closer to her mother’s warmth. Azura doesn’t feel like sleeping.  
  
“Don’t go, mama,” she whispers. What she really means is _don’t forget me,_ but she doesn’t know it yet.  
  
“I’m right here, little one, now and forever,” her mother promises. What she really means is _until tomorrow,_ but she doesn’t know that yet, either. So Azura sleeps, forgets the loneliness and stifling silence of her days in Nohr, still selfishly wishes for home.  
  


* * *

  
  
It’s 1941. Azura wakes in the boardinghouse in Izumo, sharing the narrow bed with Scarlet Sykes, the journalist she’s silently sworn to follow across the continent if that’s what it takes. Scarlet’s arms hold her close, though Scarlet’s sleeping deeply enough an earthquake couldn’t rouse her. She’s warm, and when Azura breathes, she smells typewriter ink and charcoal.  
  
It’s been years since she’s woken feeling this kind of homesick— homesick for a place she barely remembers anymore, homesick for a place she only knew when she was very small. She never knew what it was really like to live there. She barely even knows what happened to it. And yet she yearns for it with an intensity she’d almost forgotten. It’s strange.  
  
Scarlet snores, knocking Azura from her thoughts. Azura lies back down, faces Scarlet on their shared pillow. The bed’s too narrow for her to scoot away, so instead she scoots closer, puts her head under Scarlet’s chin, lets her hands move out to grip Scarlet’s t-shirt. Home is a long time gone, but it seems that with Scarlet, it doesn’t need to be.


	11. Warehouse Circuit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise bitch
> 
> real talk though: this is made as a kind of early birthday present to my dear friend mel, also known as ao3 user cowboy-sneep-dip!! happy birthday, loser :D

The sun sets over Izumo, painting the lines of mountains and fields in shades of red and gold. Stars poke their heads out from the bluish curtain settling over the sea, visible beyond lines of buildings and archways and telephone poles— the sea is always visible from somewhere in Izumo, regardless of where you are. Seagulls nestle on top of red mountain gates that arch over the cities, painted porcelain streetlights hanging from the tops that light up the city at night, the bases plastered in layers of posters and discarded chewing gum. The trees in the parks are bare in the winter chill, but strings of lights and charms dangle from them, doubtlessly beautiful when the sun sets fully. Commuter traffic from the nine-to-five weekday shift has faded into a typical off-peak shuffle, but cars still rumble through the streets and streetcar bells still echo through the city. The sunset fades and the streetlights flicker on as pedestrians pass, though the sidewalks are clearing as the cold wind from the sea and the chill of the late-autumn night sets in. It’d be a perfectly normal scene if it weren’t crawling with Shirasagi vans.  
  
Scarlet think it’s kind of silly how obvious they are. They’re all white, down to the white walls on the tires, but the windows are so tinted they’re nearly mirrored. Most of them are so clean they look like they’ve barely left the lot, and all of them have the Shirasagi logo— a white dragon silhouetted in a big red circle, like one would see on any over-the-counter medicine bottle in Hoshido. It’s unusual seeing it on a car when Scarlet’s gotten used to seeing it on the painkillers she buys to keep the pain in her side at bay. It’s even more unusual having to reframe the Shirasagi logo from “doctors and pharmacists” to “certain death.”

The pharmacists have become the harmacists. Scarlet would find that hilarious if it weren't so painfully true.  
  
Azura grabs her arm tighter. “Don’t look at them for too long,” she whispers. “We’re acting natural. Pretend you belong here.”  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” Scarlet whispers back. She straightens her overcoat. It feels stiff and unnatural, not like her old leather jacket. But her leather jacket is still torn and bloodstained from when she got up close and personal with someone’s knife, and they couldn’t take the risk of some agent stopping them and connecting the dots. Really, their disguises needed all the help they could get.  
  
Scarlet wonders if part of a disguise is an underlying panic that it’s paper-thin. But they’ve done what they could with the materials they had, and to Scarlet’s credit, she’s not sweating that much. She’s in a gray tweed suit and a wool overcoat (far more tweed than she’s used to wearing, and it admittedly makes her feel like she’s impersonating an office chair) with a fedora covering most of her hair— which Azura’s trimmed, combed, and gelled as flat as she could make it. Azura’s dressed to match, like they’re a couple auditioning for the role of “boring background characters” in a movie, with the key difference that she’s cut it, curled it, and pinned it into place under her scarf. Azura says they’re completely inconspicuous, so long as Scarlet doesn’t open her mouth.  
  
It’s only until they get to the marina, Scarlet repeats to herself. She can keep her mouth shut until then.  
  
Just their luck that the marina is even worse. There, the white vans clog the streets. Shirasagi agents in brown suits lurk, weaving through the harbor as if their quarry might be hiding under a pier. Azura hisses a curse under her breath, changing their course to pull Scarlet into an alleyway between warehouses.  
  
“So much for catching the ferry to Cyrkensia,” she mutters. “They must’ve expected us to do that.”  
  
“Well, shit,” Scarlet says. “What are our other options?”  
  
“The train,” Azura says uncertainly. “Getting a bus ticket. Hitchhiking, I _guess_ — I could get us a ride, but it might take a while.”  
  
“So a car would be best,” Scarlet gathers. “Great. Do you know how to boost a car?”  
  
“Only if it was made before ’28.” Azura’s being serious and Scarlet doesn’t know what she expected. “I mean, I _guess_ that would work, but they can track that kind of thing.”  
  
“Who can boost cars?” a new voice says. Scarlet’s hand goes to her gun before she knows what she’s doing. It’s halfway out of her jacket when she stops.  
  
The figure puts their hands up, taking a step back. “Hey, cool it,” he says. “I just wanna talk.” He’s a young Hoshidan man, maybe in his early twenties, with long hair and a grin far too easy for the situation, wearing brown cargo pants and a grease-stained t-shirt. There’s a heavy-looking wrench tucked into his pocket, but no gun that Scarlet can see. Scarlet slowly lowers hers.  
  
Azura puts her hand on Scarlet’s arm. “Who’s asking?”  
  
The young man doesn’t answer that. “Can you drive?”  
  
Azura squints. “She can,” she says, nodding to Scarlet. Scarlet, remembering she still has to keep her mouth shut, nods.  
  
The young man turns to her. “You fast?”  
  
Scarlet nods again.  
  
He grins. “Ever raced before?”  
  
Scarlet glances to Azura, who looks just as puzzled as Scarlet feels, and shakes her head.  
  
“We’ll change that,” the young man decides. “C’mon with me. I’ve got just the ticket for you folks.”  
  
“Names first,” Azura insists. “Who are you?”  
  
“You can call me Duster,” says Duster. “And you?”  
  
Azura studies him. “Missy,” she tells him. Scarlet wonders if she just made that up on the spot. “This is Dizzy. She doesn’t talk much.”  
  
Scarlet grunts. Duster seems to accept this, and nods, then takes one hand out of his pockets to jab down the alleyway with his thumb.  
  
“My buddies will want to meet’cha,” he says. “If you’re racing, that is. You in?”  
  
“We’ll discuss that with your buddies,” Azura says.  
  
Duster shrugs. “Fair enough. Shall we, then?”  
  
So Azura and Scarlet, who can’t help but think this seems like a terrible idea, follow Duster down the alleyway towards some undisclosed location for some illegal activity. Scarlet looks skeptically at Azura, who grimaces in admittance and shrugs helplessly. Scarlet sees her point, but doesn’t like this, and doesn’t trust Duster or his “buddies” one inch.  
  
Duster is a friendly sort. “So, Missy,” he says, as they walk. “You and Dizzy— you drink out of the same bottle?”  
  
“She drives, I talk,” Azura shrugs. “We help each other. It works out. What about your trouble boys, Duster?”  
  
“We’re no trouble boys, sister,” Duster snorts. “Twitch started the whole thing about a year ago. For the excitement, you know? We take bent cars left for dead, tow ‘em back to the shop and fix up the ones we can, chop the ones we don’t. Started with just him, me, and Fury burning rubber, but we found some more punks and gaycats to bum with, so we’ve got almost a real ring.”  
  
“Is this a mob?” Azura asks skeptically. “We’re not interested in mob ties.”  
  
“Nah, nothing like that,” Duster insists. “We don’t kill nobody. We don’t rob folks. Sure, the racing’s illegal, and the gambling, and there’s a way more upstanding way of dealing with the bent cars, but no one’s getting hurt, unless they wrap their bucket ‘round a phone pole, and that’s on them.”  
  
“Convenient.” Azura does not sound like she admires that. “Twitch runs the ring, yeah? Can’t imagine he’ll be jazzed about you bringing in a couple strays.”  
  
Duster snorts. “‘Course not,” he says. “Trust me, if it were any other time, he’d blow a gasket. But one of our top racers picked up a three-spot in the big house last Monday, leaving us a heap without a bangtail to drive it, and Twitch’s investors are none too happy. There was a lot riding on poor Dodger— so it goes.” He shrugs. “But if Dizzy can drive, and _win_ , then you two ankles are doing us a huge favor. Worse things in life than having a gang of racers owe you, huh?”  
  
“Suppose so,” Azura admits. She nudges Scarlet. “What do you think, Dizzy? Can you win?”  
  
Scarlet grunts. Hopefully Duster doesn’t pick up on her uncertainty.  
  
“Sure hope that’s good,” Duster says blithely. Duster, it seems, isn’t particularly smart.  
  
“She’ll win,” Azura promises. “Don’t worry about a thing.”  
  
Duster brings them to a warehouse nestled among the storage facilities and manufacturing plants, because of course that’s where the illegal street racing takes place, and knocks three times on a metal door built into the side. “S’me,” he says through the crack. “Brought Twitch a new racer to replace Dodger.”  
  
Someone says something from the other side that Scarlet can’t hear. She tugs at the brim of her hat. Duster winks at them, though, and the door opens. A Hoshidan woman in thick gloves, a tank top, and coveralls tied around her waist sneers at Azura and Scarlet as they pass through the door, then turns her ire to Duster.  
  
“Look, Duster,” she says. “I’m not gonna stop you from making this terrible decision, because I’m a good friend, but I feel like I should tell you that Twitch isn’t gonna be too keen on… this.”  
  
“It’ll be fine,” Duster insists. “Twitch needs racers, right, Fury? And Dizzy there says she’s a racer— well, Missy does. Dizzy doesn’t talk.”  
  
Fury groans. “Great, a _dummy_ Nohrian racer. That’ll work out swell.”  
  
“Have a little faith in me, will you?” Duster nudges her. “Won’t know ’til I ask. Oy, Twitch!”  
  
Azura tugs Scarlet aside. “You’re doing great,” she whispers. “If we can convince Twitch to let us race, maybe we can get one of their bent cars to escape to Cyrkensia.”  
  
“Hopefully Digits hasn’t moved on without us,” Scarlet mumbles back.  
  
“Doubt it,” Azura says. “Nohrians like long vacations. I bet Izumo was a day trip for her school.”  
  
Scarlet thinks back to her high school. A day trip to an entire other country would’ve been unthinkably expensive back then— though Scarlet had gone to public school, and Digits’ school was clearly private, unless schools had just changed that much, which was a scary thought. Do kids still have food fights these days? Smoking in the bathrooms? Piecing together ancient drama from textbook graffiti? Scarlet doesn’t miss any of that, per se, but it’d be weird to think of high school without it.  
  
“If you say so,” Scarlet says. “So I just have to win a race, right? No big deal. I drive all the time.”  
  
“You also have to make them think you’re going to _win_ the race,” Azura reminds her.  
  
“I think that part is on you,” Scarlet replies. “I don’t talk much, remember?”  
  
Azura looks at her wryly. “Just don’t waffle or start crying on me, hotshot, and we’ll be fine,” she says. She reaches out and straightens Scarlet’s coat. “We’ll be just fine.”  
  
Someone new clears their throat, announcing their presence as the ringleader— this must be Twitch. Twitch is another young man the same age as Duster and Fury, though he’s obviously the boss. He’s in expensive but sloppy clothes, like he’s trying to show how little he cares about his family’s money. A pair of aviator shades dangles from the unbuttoned collar of his pale blue shirt. He gives Scarlet and Azura a once-over, his hands tucked in the pockets of his fleece-lined flight jacket, and doesn’t look too impressed by what he sees.  
  
Azura rolls with it. “You must be Twitch,” she says. “I’m Missy, that’s Dizzy. We’re here to—“  
  
“Look, I don’t have time for long introductions,” Twitch interrupts. “Can you race?”  
  
“She can,” Azura promises.  
  
“Great, prove it,” Twitch decides, tossing Scarlet a set of keys. She catches them, to her credit, without fumbling. “I’ve got a room full of gamblers who put good cabbage on Dodger. If you can race like him, you’ve got yourself a spot.”  
  
Right, no big deal, all Scarlet had to do was beat a gangster at his own game. She looks at Azura, who opens her mouth to say something, and then closes it and pats Scarlet’s shoulder.  
  
“Alright, Twitch, we’re in,” Azura decides. “Where’s the racetrack?”  
  
It would’ve been too much to hope for that Twitch let Azura ride shotgun in Scarlet’s car— Dodger’s old car, rather. It also would’ve been too much to hope for that Scarlet was racing Twitch himself, who doesn’t look nearly as greasy as the rest of the gang and thus probably isn’t an actual driver. No, instead, Twitch takes Missy up to a kind of tower on top of one of the warehouses overlooking a fenced-off parking lot with abandoned forklifts and shipping containers all piled up in the center, the track itself marked off by battered traffic cones. Scarlet squints up at her from the ground and can’t see her.  
  
Dodger’s car is in good shape, at least. Scarlet strips off her overcoat, jacket, and her hat and tosses them into the shotgun seat, pushing up her sleeves to check that everything’s in order, until she catches the glare of the other driver, leaning on top of her car.  
  
Scarlet squints at her. The other driver isn’t Hoshidan, as far as she can tell. She’s short, but strong, in a t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off and a denim vest, leather gloves buckled around her wrists, and reflective sunglasses. She pushes them up to glare at Scarlet and they nestle among her white hair. She sneers, and Scarlet catches a glimpse of red tribal marks on her cheeks.  
  
Scarlet grunts. She’s not supposed to talk much. However the other driver interprets that, she decides not to dignify it with a response.  
  
A whistle sounds from a camp chair on top of one of the forklifts. Fury sits in it with two flags tucked under her arm and a pistol in her hand. Duster is on the other side of a starting line he’s just drawn on the asphalt with a piece of chalk, which he tucks into his pocket.  
  
“Alright, let’s have a clean race,” Fury calls. “Three laps around the lot. This isn’t big-time, but if Dizzy isn’t cut out to fill Dodger’s shoes for the gamblers, then Clubs gets the spot. Try not to wrap your cars around anything and try not to kill each other. Racers ready?”  
  
Scarlet and Clubs duck into their respective cars. Scarlet twists the key and starts the engine, which roars to life under her hands. She cracks her knuckles and cracks her neck, and waits for the starting shot. Waits. Waits.  
  
The gun sounds. Tires screech against the asphalt. The force pushes Scarlet back against the headrest, but she doesn’t flinch. Scarlet’s never raced a car before, but she’s raced bikes— the field of view is different, but the principle is the same. The car vibrates under her touch. Warehouses zip by as she pulls tight into the first turn, leaving skid marks on the pavement.  
  
Clubs pulls up by her side. Scarlet sees her gritting her teeth out of the corner of her eye. She pulls early for the next turn, the rear end of her car swinging out into Scarlet’s lane. Scarlet curses, slows to avoid it and sacrifices valuable momentum. She pushes the accelerator, praying for it to catch her up again in the straightway.  
  
She pulls up next to Clubs again. Coming up on the second hairpin turn, Scarlet tries to turn on the inside, but Clubs beats her to it, and Scarlet’s forced to take the longer outside curve. From the forklift perch, Fury waves a green flag, and Scarlet guns it along the straightway again— to no avail. Clubs crosses the line first, and it seems she’ll only pull ahead during the second lap.  
  
Whatever Scarlet’s trying isn’t working. She accelerates only for Clubs to pull ahead again, her rearview mirror level with Clubs’ rear door. And Clubs, it seems, is a more experienced car racer than Scarlet is, because she doesn’t let Scarlet get on the inside, no matter how much Scarlet tries. It seems she’s doomed to come in second out of two. The second lap goes much like the first, and Scarlet curses aloud despite the sound of her voice being lost to the roar of the engine.  
  
Scarlet glances at the gear shift. As they enter the final lap, she decides to do something incredibly stupid and probably deadly— but she can’t do it right away. It’s only the second turn that has the fence curved to match the road, and that’s just what Scarlet needs to use. She eases back, just a tiny bit, and lets Clubs pull ahead in the first turn. In the straightway she accelerates again, and as predicted, Clubs speeds up to match. But they’re closing in on the second turn, and that’s when Scarlet shifts.  
  
Her engine roars, boosted into high gear usually reserved for steep slopes, and Scarlet swings outwards instead of in, her left tires leaving the road and jumping onto the chain-link fence. The metal groans and gives way under the weight of the car, but Scarlet drives on, hands white-knuckled, jaw clenched, heart pounding. If it works, she wins. She doesn’t think about what happens if it fails— and anyway, if it does, she won’t have to.  
  
But it works. It works, and she tears past Clubs, towards the waving checkered flag. She races across it ahead of her opponent, tires screaming against the asphalt. She downshifts, turns the wheel, brakes— brakes, brakes, feeling her car groan against the sudden change in speed and smelling the burning rubber of her tires. The car lurches on its right tires, but it stops before it flips, and Scarlet feels her brain jostle in her skull when it lands back on the road. Clubs screeches to a halt next to her, and for a moment all Scarlet can do is breathe, and let the adrenaline edge off enough she can pry her hands from the steering wheel.  
  
She pulls herself out of the car. Burnt rubber and exhaust fumes fill her nose. Clubs leans against the driver’s-side door of her car. She pushes her sunglasses back up on her nose and nods to Scarlet.  
  
“Good race,” she says. Her voice is gravelly and rough like the asphalt itself. She offers Scarlet’s hand to shake. Scarlet shakes it. Her skin is hot, her palm rough as sandpaper.  
  
Azura crashes into her the minute Scarlet lets go of Clubs’ handshake, her arms around Scarlet’s neck like she’s afraid to let go again. She has to stand on her toes to do it; Scarlet’s not tall, but even so.  
  
“That was such a stupid move,” she manages, her chin on Scarlet’s shoulder. “Don’t worry me like that.”  
  
Scarlet chuckles and sets a hand on Azura’s back. “I worried you?”  
  
“Don’t wear it out,” Azura mumbles.  
  
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Scarlet says, though she can’t hide her grin. Azura pulls away to face Twitch, who claps his hands in slow applause. He’s followed by a group of men in suits, overcoats, leather gloves, and bowler hats.  
  
“Nicely done, Dizzy,” he says. “Good to see you’re not all talk… or that _Missy_ isn’t all talk, I suppose.” He nods politely to Azura. “I’m a man of my word. You’ll drive Dodger’s car in the next race, and between when it’s set up and when we race I imagine we’ll have found a more permanent contender to fill his spot. Since I assume the two of you aren’t sticking around?”  
  
Azura nods. “We’ve got an engagement further west to worry about,” she says. She hasn’t detached herself from Scarlet’s side, and has in fact tucked herself under Scarlet’s arm. Scarlet’s not sure what to make of it, but she kind of wishes she’d put her jacket back on.  
  
“Wouldn’t dream of keeping you from it, then,” Twitch says professionally. “The next race is tomorrow. We’ll go over the circuit with the other racers while Fury and Duster make sure there aren’t any cops brushing the area—“  
  
“Bad news, Twitch,” Duster yells from across the yard. “You’ve got visitors from Suzanoh!”  
  
Twitch grumbles and rolls his eyes. “We’ll regroup in the dealer room, gentlemen,” he says to the gamblers, who disperse and headed back for the main warehouse. He looks back to Scarlet and Azura. “You two, come with me. I don’t know if that stunt you pulled is some kind of move that’s allowed in foreign racing, but we’ll need to go over the house rules if you’re gonna race tomorrow.”  
  
Scarlet gives him a two-fingered salute. Twitch, satisfied, turns and marches back towards the warehouse, and Scarlet and Azura follow at a much more relaxed pace.  
  
“I can’t believe this,” Azura breathes, holding onto Scarlet’s arm. “I wasn’t even racing, and I’m dizzy from excitement.”  
  
“Yeah, imagine how _I_ feel,” Scarlet snorts. “I thought— well, I don’t think I thought anything. I just kind of did it, and it worked. And I probably would’ve flipped my car and died if it didn’t.”  
  
“You took a risk and it paid off,” Azura says. “It saves us the trouble of figuring out some other way to Cyrkensia. And since Twitch and his gang seem to be able to keep the police away, we’re safe until we leave their territory. We’re golden.”  
  
Twitch is busy talking to his guest when they get back into the warehouse. Scarlet puts her jacket back on and accepts a bottle of ginger ale that Clubs tosses to her. Clubs bumps her glass against Scarlet’s in a kind of toast, and Scarlet lifts hers in response. Clubs then pries the bottlecap off with a screwdriver, hands the screwdriver to Scarlet, and chugs the whole bottle in about twenty seconds. Scarlet pops the top off her own ginger ale but doesn’t chug it, and instead flips the bottlecap into the recycling bin. Feeling significantly more grounded, Scarlet glances at Twitch. She can’t quite see who he’s talking to, but if she listens closely, she can hear him.  
  
“I don’t _care_ what mom said, I don’t _want_ to go back to Suzanoh,” Twitch groans. “I’m a grown man! I can handle myself perfectly fine here in Izumo.”  
  
“Takumi, please,” a man’s voice says, patient and measured but familiar enough Scarlet tenses. “Izumo is dangerous. You recall the news? The rogue Chevois that kidnapped our informant has been operating in this area.”  
  
Scarlet’s eyes widen. She looks at Azura, paralyzed, who bites her lip and tucks loose strands of her hair back into the scarf around her head.  
  
“I don’t care!” Twitch protests. “That’s what you and Reina are for, right? So go back to looking for her and stop _bothering me_ while I’m _working!”_  
  
“He’s a _Shirasagi_ ,” Azura hisses. “He’s _Takumi Shirasagi!”_  
  
“That’s probably not good,” Scarlet guesses.  
  
“It could be worse,” Azura admits. “But it’s far from ideal. Ikeda and Yukimura here, though? That’s about as bad as it gets.”  
  
“So, bad,” Scarlet sums up. “How do we get out of this one?”  
  
“Don’t look them in the eye,” Azura says. “Pretend you belong here. Act natural.”  
  
She barely gets the words out when Scarlet sees Twitch sigh and start pacing, giving Scarlet a view of none other than Yukimura and Ikeda— and for a split second, letting their eyes meet.

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me on twitter @detectiveryanz or follow for memes, video games, or just to get to know the sad little man behind the curtain.
> 
> want me to write a particular ship or just beta/edit your fic? email ryanzman17@gmail.com to discuss throwing money at me to get what you want. alternately, chuck a few quarters my way at /A3252NPV over on ko-fi to keep getting that sweet sweet gay shit.


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